Maralinga, spring 1956. A British airbase in the middle of nowhere; a top-secret atomic testing ground; an army of raw youth led by powerful, ambitious men. A cocktail for disaster.

Maralinga is the story of Lieutenant Daniel Gardiner, who accepts a posting to the wilds of South Australia on a promise of rapid promotion; Harold Dartleigh, Deputy Director of MI6 and his undercover operative Gideon Melbray; Australian Army Colonel Nick Stratton and the enigmatic Petraeus Mitchell, bushman and anthropologist. They all find themselves in a violent and unforgiving landscape, infected with the unique madness and excitement that only nuclear testing creates.

Maralinga is also a story of love; a love so strong that it draws the adventurous young English journalist Elizabeth Hoffmann halfway around the world in search of the truth.

And Maralinga is a story of heartbreak; heartbreak brought to the innocent First Australians who had walked their land unhindered for 40,000 years …

During the darkest days of the Cold War, in the remote wilderness of a South Australian desert, the future of an infant nation is being decided … without its people’s knowledge.