The Second Son is a biographical account of the life of Baron Leopold von der Borch, an aristocrat who, in 1868 at the age of twenty-two, left Germany for Australia aboard the George Shotten. During the four months at sea, he could not have imagined that he would never return to the family and home he loved. Leopold's story is about a young man learning to stand on his own two feet: a young man who became a detective, an interpreter, and the first official police photographer in Australia. The Second Son is a story of challenge, of contrast, and of hope.