Fallout Format: Paperback

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.

Paul Thomas: Paul Thomas, born in the UK in 1951, emigrated , age 3, with his family to New Zealand. He lives in Wellington and is the country’s best known best known crime writer. His novels include Dirty Laundry(aka Old School Tie, 1994),Inside Dope (1995),Guerrilla Season (1996), Final Cut (1999),The Empty Bed (2002) and Sex Crimes (2003)and Death on Demand (2013). In addition, Thomas has written short stories and screenplays for TV, including Ihaka: Blunt Instrument.