After decades-old human bones are discovered in the Tasmanian wilderness, Antonia Kovács returns home with questions for her father, a retired police inspector in Queenstown. Meanwhile, Tom Pilar receives news of an inheritance, from a man he barely remembers, one of his father's friends from the early days, newly arrived in the island and looking for work. Set amidst the harsh terrain of the timber and ore industries of the west coast, The Unearthed is a haunting novel about the past and its quiet but tenacious grip on the present. It reveals the tragic connections between the disparate lives of post-war migrants and local workers, and the fallibility of memory, the illusion of truths and the repercussions on real lives.