ANOTHER MAN'S BEER

Blood at the King's Arms

In the small Central Otago village of Cawder, the King's Arms is more than a country hotel. It is Mac BethelL's kingdom.

Mac has ambition. He wants the hotel to succeed, to make money, and to build a future with his wife, Helen. When the hotel's owner, Duncan Wilson, arrives with plans that threaten everything Mac has built, ambition begins to turn into something darker.

Then Duncan is found dead.

Helen knows more than she should.

And once the first secret is buried, another follows.

A friendship ends in blood. A policeman begins asking questions. A frightened witness disappears. And Helen, increasingly consumed by guilt, fear and obsession, finds herself willing to do almost anything to protect the life she and Mac have created.

But every act has a consequence.

As suspicion closes in, Helen's grip on reality begins to fracture. The dead seem to follow her. Voices speak from empty rooms. She washes her hands again and again, desperate to remove something that no one else can see.

Mac watches the woman he loves disappear into darkness.

And the King's Arms becomes a place haunted not only by its past, but by the people who died to protect it.

Drawing inspiration from Shakespeare's great Scottish tragedy, Another Man's Beer is a dark tale of ambition, betrayal, guilt and murder, set against the stark beauty of 1960s Central Otago.

A crown won in blood is a heavy burden to bear, and some blood can never be washed away.