A Handful of Destiny — Tony Nash

From Heaven to Hell via the First Fleet. At Michaelmas 1786 Thomas Nash's peaceful farming existence is shattered when he is falsely accused and sentenced to transportation to New Holland. The terrifying ordeal of the disastrous voyage is only the beginning of his torture and torment. His nemesis, the new Lord Rainforde, obsessed with his desires, has sent paid assassins to murder Thomas, his wife and his son. Scourged and dragged away to die, he jumps from a moving ship into shark-filled waters and attempts escape. Tracked and hounded by fiendish pursuers, he is shot, terribly mutilated and left for dead. With the help of an aborigine he somehow survives, an outcast in the Outback, with one impossible thought uppermost in his mind: REVENGE!