A violent murder in a rural New Zealand slaughterhouse is the catalyst for a series of fast moving events that ultimately have geopolitical consequences. The rapidly developing action of 'Novel' straddles Aotearoa New Zealand, Hong Kong SAR, Phillipines and beyond. In our contemporary world of increasing electronic surveillance from hegemonic national administrations, several diverse characters struggle to survive and to resist in a variety of ways. At the same time the so-called established methods of writing fiction undergo deconstruction.