This work investigates the life and professional duties of Alexander Green, the man tasked with carrying out capital punishment in the early colony of New South Wales. Ray Beckett utilizes historical records and archival documents to reconstruct the environment of the penal colony and the specific role of the public executioner. The text examines how the legal system of the era functioned through the lens of the individual responsible for its most final sanction.

Historians and researchers often cite this text for its specific focus on the administrative and social history of early Australian justice. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the reliance on primary source documentation to build the narrative.