Jamie watches the Queensland town beneath him from the sheltered branches of the mango tree. Through days of shimmering heat choked with red dust to days of rainstorms bringing mud to the mangroves, everything is as it should be - the sights and sounds and smells are as familiar to him as the everlasting childhood in which they appear. Then everything changes overnight when he falls in love. A tender, fumbling first love that flowed and ebbed just as suddenly. And in its wake came death, the sudden shocking death of someone he loved. Ronald McKie "...is a true professional... a super word-handler... This is a novel which bears the mark of the craftsman who is master of the language." - from the report of judges of the Miles Franklin Award, 1974.