A murderer stalks the post-apocalyptic ruins of the Pacific Northwest.

A year after the outbreak and nuclear war, very few in the Northern Hemisphere have survived. Fourteen thousand Europeans and Canadians found safety behind the great defensive walls built across Nova Scotia. When they are attacked by piratical bandits who now control the ruins of New York, they have no choice but to flee.

Where the evacuation of Britain was a bloodbath, the Southern Pacific fared better. Survivors thrive in fortified enclaves in Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Thousands of Canadian refugees found a new home in Australia’s Northern Territory, albeit living in hastily built shanty towns where water is scarce and crime is rife. Now they want to return home.

While Bill Wright organises the evacuation of Nova Scotia, Kim and Sholto remain in the Pacific Northwest, searching for a new home. Their plans are upended when a plane arrives carrying pilgrims travelling onward to the Middle East, a claimant for the presidency of the old United States, and a killer in disguise.

After an assassination attempt on the pilgrims’ leadership, surveying British Columbia and Washington State is put on hold as the search for the killers begins. Finding the shot-caller behind the attack is the responsibility of Commissioner Tess Qwong, whose hunt takes her from crocodile-filled rivers of Australia’s Northern Territory to the densely packed refugee camp the exiled Canadians call home.

Set among the radioactive desolation of British Columbia, the undead-filled ruins of Washington State, and the exiled Canadians’ capital in Australia’s Northern Territory, Bill and Kim’s dreams of creating a new and better world are fading, while the prospect of war only grows stronger.