Tito Ihaka, the unkempt, overweight Maori cop, was demoted to Sergeant
due to insubordination and pigheadedness. He investigates the unsolved
killing of a seventeen-year-old girl at an election night party in a
ritzy villa near Auckland. Ihaka is also embroiled in a very personal
mystery. A freelance journalist has stumbled across information that
Ihaka's father, Jimmy, a trade union firebrand and renegade Marxist,
didn't die of natural causes. The stories weave themselves into an
exciting climax in an atmosphere of political maneuvering and intrigue
surrounding the United States' confrontation with New Zealand over its
anti-nuclear stance.