Enjoying a respite between marriages, Kris Neven is reunited with his teenage daughter at the height of the Christmas season. After casually disregarding a threat to separate him from his daughter, and his money from his bank account, Neven is plunged into a month of audacity, intrigue and violence, which rampages from the heart of Auckland to the shores of Lake Taupo as he responds to the demand for a monster ransom. Love, humour, violence and deception spill from the pages of this novel, holding the reader's attention into the small hours.