A gay bushranger with a love of poetry and guns. A grotesque hangman with a passion for flowers and gardening. A broken young man desperate for love and respect. These men - two of them lovers - are about to bring the era of Australia's outlaws to a torrid and bloody climax. Moonlite is the true and epic story of Andrew George Scott, an Irish-born preacher who becomes, along with Ned Kelly, one of the nation's most notorious and celebrated criminals. Charismatic, intelligent and prone to bursts of madness, Scott captivates churchgoers with his fiery sermons before dubbing himself Captain Moonlite, brazenly holding up a bank and staging one of the country's most audacious jailbreaks. After falling in love with fellow prisoner James Nesbitt, Scott finds himself unable to shrug off his criminal past. Pursued by the police, he stages a dramatic siege and prepares for a final showdown with the law - and a macabre executioner without a nose. Meticulously research and told at a cracking pace, Moonlite is set amid the violent and sexually-repressed era of Australia in the second half of the 19th century. With a cast of remarkable characters, it reveals the extraordinary lives of our bushrangers - and the desperation of a young nation eager to remove the stains of its convict past. But most of all, Moonlite is a tragic love story.
