The Tally Stick

Carl Nixon is a New Zealand novelist, short story writer and playwright. He has written four novels and a number of original plays which have been performed throughout New Zealand. He is published by Penguin in New Zealand and Australia, but has never been published in the US In The Tally Stick, an upper-class English family arrives in the wilderness of New Zealand only for both parents to be killed in car crash Trying to survive alone in the wilderness, their children are transformed by the harsh landscape. They are taken in - kidnapped, really - by two locals who keep them for free labor. The authors explores the siblings‘ differing responses to their radically changed lifestyle When the remains of one of the children is found 30 years after the accident, the children‘s British aunt tries to solve the mystery of what happened to the family A thrilling page-turner and novel of edge-of-the-seat suspense put together like a jigsaw puzzle, with the landscape and weather of the West Coast of New Zealand given a prominent role This is highly accessible, commercial fiction Film rights sold to Blondini Brothers, a producer from New Zealand