The events of Part 1 take place on January 27, 1866. The book begins with Mr. Walter Moody arriving at the Crown Hotel in Hokitika, New Zealand, to get a drink and relax after a long and difficult ocean voyage where he encountered some sort of “preternatural horror.” He inadvertently walks into a meeting of 12 men from the town who have gathered at the hotel. One of them, Thomas Balfour, a wealthy shipping agent, interrogates Moody about who he is and what brings him to Hokitika. Moody tells Balfour that he came to Hokitika to get away from his father and to try to look for gold. He recalls his frightening voyage to Hokitika in a storm; he traveled on a barque called the Godspeed under Captain Carver. The men are shocked that he arrived on the Godspeed, telling him that Captain Carver killed his own child and that the mother, the sex worker Anna Wetherell, had been jailed for attempting to take her own life. They ask Moody for his help in figuring out some distressing and mysterious events that took place in Hokitika.