When political journalist Harriet Dunkley sees the gutted body of a young man washed up on the lakeshore she suspects a conspiracy. Her newspaper thinks she's tilting at another windmill, the police stonewall, her Government sources are silent, and a senior contact within Australian intelligence firmly warns her off. But Harriet discovers a link between Sabine Hobbs, a young Australian who has disappeared after staging a dramatic protest in China, and the dead boy and determines that, whatever the personal or professional cost, she must pursue a story that could overturn everything Australians believe about our Government and their place in the world.