Cannibal Country Books in Order

Cannibal Country begins in the early 1900s with Ned Hawkins, a boy from an English slum who wants more than grinding poverty can offer. Trouble forces him to flee the country, and his escape takes him to Papua, a place Wareham knew from his own working life many decades later.

The setting matters. Papua is not just a backdrop with danger painted on it. It is a colonial frontier where Europeans, local communities, traders, officials, and opportunists all meet under pressure. Disease, violence, language, custom, and distance make every decision heavier.

Ned finds a future almost by accident.

The first book, Long Way Place, gives him the chance to prosper and even to find love, but the land around him is never calm. There are ominous movements beneath the surface, and the world he is building may be less secure than it looks. Later books carry that question forward as home, safety, and belonging become harder to define.

Wareham’s usual concerns are all here: class, survival, empire, money, marriage, and the gap between official confidence and ground-level reality. Ned is not a gentleman adventurer. He is a poor man trying to stay alive and make himself useful in a place that can reward boldness but punishes foolishness quickly.

The trilogy is a good choice for readers who want something away from Wareham’s better-known naval and European war settings. Read Long Way Place first, then A Place Called Home, and finish with A New Place. The titles themselves trace Ned’s problem: escape is one thing, but finding where he belongs is much harder.