A Competent Man

Just after the Second World War Rosie Baker, a working girl from the slums of inner-city Auckland, beaten and close to death, is dumped from a flash city car onto the long grass outside an isolated farm gate. The two young farmers, maimed by war wounds and recovering from combat-induced madness, battling both the hostile and marginal farm, as well as their own insanity, fight to save Rosie. As Rosie recovers, she sees her chance to build a new life for both herself and the men, but Rosie's secrets and her own pathology bring the men and those around them to the edge of disaster. A gritty story set in the back country of New Zealand in the late forties. It takes us back to the great tradition of New Zealand rural story telling. The plot is fast-moving, the characters likable and although it is set in a time now past, it examines themes that are important today. Following a long career in education, Rob Allen is now emerging as a genuine New Zealand author, and the settings and characters, in his four novels to date, reflect that. He lives in Auckland and is passionate in his love for New Zealand; its places, people, landscape; and believes it to be a naturally spiritual place. This is Rob Allen's fourth novel. He has also written Apparition, Sons of the Poison Tree, and Mishi's Gift.