Current Books

Life Size Bites is a collection of short stories and flash fiction looking at a wide range of subjects. The first two stories in the collection, comprise the winning entries in the 2025 Te Tauihu Short Story Competition and the 2026 Cambridge Autumn Festival Short Story Competition.

Several of the flash fiction pieces were placed in Franklin Writers Short Story Competitions in recent years.

Hopefully, readers will find Life Size Bites a varied and entertaining read, with a few surprises.

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1870 The Colony of New Zealand

On a visit to the rugged and sparsely populated Great Barrier Island, ageing Armed Constabulary Sergeant, Patrick Kelly, investigates a possible shipwreck, and comes across the survivors leaving the area in a stolen boat, after murdering the owner. Kelly recognises one of the would-be pirates as Lily Powell, a dangerous woman he had arrested some months earlier, who had recently escaped gaol. He wants her recaptured, but his superiors say she has escaped on the High Seas, and to forget about her.

Sergeant Kelly is later sent up to the remote northern gumfields to take over the stalled investigation of the murder of a gum dealer. Lily Powell unexpectedly appears and after a struggle is arrested. She is sent back to Auckland under heavy police guard, leaving Kelly on his own to continue the murder investigation.

When the murderer realises that the Sergeant is on his trail, he ambushes him. Can Kelly, alone and injured, survive until reinforcements arrive?

Also available as an ebook on Amazon Kindle.

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Read both the action packed 1870 adventures of New Zealand Armed Constabulary Sergeant Patrick Kelly. Whether preventing a royal assassination and hunting Fenians in the goldfields of the Thames, encountering pirates on Great Barrier Island, or solving a murder in the northern gumfields, Kelly is in the thick of the action enforcing his own version of justice. Plenty of action and adventure for a special two book price of $57.95 (incl P & P).

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Colonial Auckland, New Zealand 1870.

After barely surviving an ill-planned attempt to infiltrate an Irish Fenian group in the Thames Goldfields, Sergeant Patrick Kelly finds himself in disgrace with his superiors and fighting for his job. When Prince Alfred, Queen Victoria’s second son, visits Auckland soon after surviving an assassination attempt in Australia, Kelly is told his job will not be protecting the prince, but instead looking after Tom, the prince’s pet baby elephant.

However, when the local Fenians decide to kill Prince Alfred in Auckland, Kelly suddenly finds himself notonly the last line of defence, but also the second intended victim. He has a target on his back and the Fenians will stop at nothing. Can the aging police sergeant stop the assassination and track down the assassins, including the beautiful American woman with the secret past? In desperate times sometimes help comes from surprising places, and they do say an elephant never forgets.

Also available as an ebook on Amazon Kindle, Smashwords, and from most ebook retailers.

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Luke has had more than his fair share of bad luck. Orphaned at a young age and later due to a misunderstanding expelled from his missionary foster family, he is trying to make his own way as a native policeman in rapidly changing colonial New Zealand.

On board ship returning from prisoner escort duties to van Diemen’s land he is wrongfully accused of murdering his former foster sister’s husband. The jury accepts the lies of his European accuser, and he is found guilty and sentenced to death.

With only a few days left before his public execution will he be able to escape the hangman and find a way to clear his name, take revenge on his false accuser, and find happiness with the young woman he loves? However, sometimes justice comes with a price.

Also available as an ebook on Amazon, Smashwords, and from most ebook retailers.

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This unique heritage style book will appeal to both children and adults alike. The text is a 1923 poem written by Terry's grandmother Elizabeth Welsman Dawson, telling in a humorous way of the trials and tribulations of travelling on the North Shore's small steam train in the 1900s. It has been colourfully illustrated in an effective and quirky way by Elva Leaming. Produced by award winning book designer Anna Egan-Reid, The Takapuna Tram is a delightful, landscape A4 hardcover, limited edition book.

'This charming book...lovely illustrations.' Heritage NZ magazine.

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CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT. CONTACT US.

Visits to old North Island Courthouses is the result of four years research, photography and North Island travel by author Terry Carson.

I have always been fascinated by the quaint little courthouse buildings found in small towns around New Zealand. A few of them I even appeared at many years ago when practising law, before they closed down. When I first started this book I never expected to locate so many old courthouses in so many small towns. Some of the towns these days are little more than ghost towns but their courthouse building still survives. Often the history of the courthouse and the town provides a fascinating look into New Zealand's colonial past.

Built for Justice takes a broadly social history approach to the role of these buildings in small town New Zealand. Apart from records in archives and local museums, it has also drawn on contemporary newspaper reports and a few remembered anecdotes from old lawyers and court staff to give an entertaining and interesting read.

The book itself has been beautifully produced by Mary Egan Limited of Auckland and is printed to a high standard by Asia Pacific Off Set Limited in China. The art work, typography and design has been carried out by award winning book designer Anna Egan-Reid. Illustrated with ninety colour photographs and fifteen black and white photographs I am confident that this hard cover 176 page book will be one all book enthusiasts will be proud to own.

The 1847 murder of the Snow family on Auckland’s North Shore was a horrific crime that shocked the Colony. There were multiple murders, body mutilations and suggestions of cannibalism, arson, false accusations, perjury and a violent attack on a witness. The Snow family murders remain one of New Zealand’s most sensational crimes.

It was a New Zealand crime of firsts; the first European judicially executed, and the first and only woman to receive the sentence of transportation from a New Zealand court.

Almost 170 years later questions still remain. Did the murderer, Joseph Burns, work alone? What was the role of his mistress, Margaret Reardon? How true was Burns’ chilling pre-execution confession?

In this new look at the Snow family murders, author and lawyer Terry Carson focuses on the role played by Margaret Reardon, the murderer’s mistress. Was she a willing participant in the horrendous crimes or was she, due to threats and violence towards her by her former lover, really another victim? Did a male dominated Victorian legal system treat her unnecessarily harshly?

The author looks at the facts and draws on his legal background to paint a realistic scenario for the role played by Margaret Reardon — The Axeman’s Accomplice.

VERY LIMITED STOCK AVAILABLE

On the 24th May 1937, the author's twenty-fourth birthday, a small 26 foot yacht left Auckland Harbour to commence a winter crossing of the stormy Tasman Sea to Australia. Along with Keith Dawson was his friend and the yacht's co-owner, Dick Wellington, (later killed over Europe as a bomber navigator in World War II) and Les O'Brien, a young man who had never set foot on a small boat before but had answered an advertisement in the newspaper and paid twenty pounds for the passage to Sydney.

The Roxane was believed to be the smallest yacht at the time to receive Marine Department clearance to leave New Zealand waters, despite having no lifeboat or any of the aids regarded as essential for modern day ocean cruising. Pre-war yachting was very different to the sailing of today. The Roxane had no ship to shore radio, no satellite navigation system, no self steering gear, stainless steel winches, or inflatable life rafts. The yacht's intended engine was a modified Austin 8 car engine that failed a day or so after the voyage began.

The Voyage of the Roxane is the tale of three young Kiwi adventurers who survived the odds and every storm that the Tasman Sea could throw at them to survive and complete their voyage relying on a combination of yachting skill and raw courage.