Includes bibliographical references (page 321-325)

An Oxford graduate -- Voyage to exile -- Arrival at the end of the world -- Destination Hobart Town -- Terra Van Diemen -- Chains and irons -- Becoming a hangman -- Rope and rum -- Doing the business -- The bell tolls -- Stains and stigmas -- Tying the knot of Mary -- Revolution in the air -- Dickens nd the last spectacle -- Evolution and execution -- Long and short -- The last woman -- Sex on the scaffold -- Fleeing the noose -- Literary imprints -- Missing cash -- Rope shadows -- The exclusive club -- The final execution -- Letting go of the rope -- Death of a hangman.

The story of a young convict, Solomon Blay, who became Her Majesty's hangman in Van Diemen's Land; the man who personally had to deliver an Empire's judgment on 200 men and women, and endured his own noose of personal demons and demonisation in order to survive ; all in the context of the great struggles of good-evil, life-death, hope-despair, which drew the attention of Darwin, Twain, Trollope and Dickens as Van Diemen's Land evolved from a Hades of Evil to sow the seeds of nationhood. The book paints a vivid picture of the society and poverty from which Blay's character was forged in England and the desperate, brutal nature of being a convict in Van Diemen's Land. This is an important book in exposing the dark 'underbelly' in the formation of modern Australia.