CHARACTERS:

 Lucas

Lucas Crichton is an ex SAS Sergeant isolated by secrets and serious trauma. A media leak about an atrocity in Bosnia a decade ago forces Lucas to confront his demons – and find out who amongst his former squaddies has leaked the story. As the body count grows, Lucas ransacks his past with increasing desperation, hoping to find there some clue to a future.

 Sophie

Sophie Morgan is a war crimes prosecutor who is given the job of finding the perpetrators of the Bosnian atrocity. She is feisty, tenacious and willing, but the trail of blood leads her to a most unexpected place, where law and justice are not synonymous, and where honour and betrayal are inextricably linked.

 Brad

Brad McKechnie was Lucas’ corporal in Bosnia, now working as an adventure tourism operator in Queenstown. Loyal, tough, dependable, he seems least affected by the horror of what they went through, and again becomes Lucas’ right-hand man in hunting down the source of the leak amongst the ex-soldiers.

 Joe

Lucas’ ex-best friend Joe Matich is a prime suspect as the leak. Superficially at least Joe seems to have coped better than most since Bosnia. Bright, intelligent, arrogant, Joe’s Auckland security firm gives him money, resources and a dangerous private army

 Michael

Michael Kadiir is now running a failing Middle Eastern restaurant in the suburbs of Auckland in partnership with his Muslim older brother. Lucas has reason to believe that Michael has succumbed to the need for a cash injection to the business and to his brother’s more extreme politics.

 Xavier

Xavier Collins is a Detective Sergeant in Wellington and at pains to make Lucas understand that he’s now first and foremost a cop – and that comes before any loyalties to old comrades. Lucas finds Xavier obstructive and defensive, particularly when it comes to Xavier’s best friend from the old days, Danny Regan.

 Danny

Danny Regan was always a fixer and a great one for lurks and perks. After Bosnia, he and his wife Jools set up a successful night club in Wellington, and life seemed sweet enough. Until Danny was put away for a homicide he tells Lucas he had nothing to do with.

 Simon

Simon Crayford, the medic in Bosnia, is the most obviously troubled by his memories. A haunted soul, he’s found peace of a sort in an isolated community on the West Coast, a peace which is shattered by Lucas’ sudden reappearance.

Grace

Grace Lawrenson was a photo journalist working in Bosnia who saw – and photographed – the humanitarian side of the atrocities she witnessed. Now living in seclusion in Dunedin, she holds the key to the truth of what happened in Bosnia.

 Fiona

Fiona McIntyre is the journalist who sells the story of the Bosnian atrocity to the London tabloid. Uninhibited, clever and fast on her feet, she lives by her wits as a stringer for an Auckland news bureau. But because she knows the source, she becomes the centre of murderous attention.

 Rowan

Rowan is Lucas’ ex-wife and the mother of his daughter. Rowan knows that whatever happened in Bosnia imploded their marriage, but Lucas has never talked about it. In her heart she’s always suspected that Lucas is hiding another secret - where is she?