Rawiri Jones is the newest and, at 24 years old, the youngest member of a 10-man forestry road-repair crew. He is keen to make a good impression but the tight-knit bunch of rough and rugged workers don't cut him any slack.
Their latest job is a doozy: eight weeks of bush and road-clearing out in the middle of nowhere. Without any practical way to get regular supplies, they'll have to take everything they'll need with them: food, chainsaw fuel and spare guitar strings.
Three weeks into the job, Rawiri suspects that their crew is not alone. Somewhere in the dense bush something is watching them. An ancient creature: fast, cunning, almost undetectable ...and utterly lethal. Rawiri's ancestors had a name for creatures like this.
Taniwha.
By the time Rawiri convinces the rest of the crew that he's not crazy, they're knee-deep in trouble - the razor-sharp teeth kind. Getting accepted into the Road Crew is now the least of Rawiri's problems!