In 1973 Pete Livermore returns from service in Vietnam, and lands a cadetship with the Cairns Post. After months of court reports and sports articles the editor, Brian Grayling, gives Pete a special assignment. Heading north by boat, he lands at a remote Cape York waterway called the Wild Dog River. His job is to write a story on a camp of itinerants, many of them veterans, commanded by a scheming larrikin called Nolan. The initially...