[2] Steve Fraser is an engineer working on a dam on the Southeast-Asian island of Sunda.

Fraser's period of employment at an end, he goes to town to catch a plane out.

He meets a half Dutch, half Sundan girl, Rosalie and both get caught up in a fundamentalist Islamic group's attempt to overthrow the provisional government and the subsequent battle around the radio station.

The book was inspired by the recent Indonesian National Revolution.

[3] Kirkus Reviews described it as "a sophisticated, circumspect drama of revolution and political terrorism... Not as sinister a chimera of intrigue as his earlier books, but an assured adventure tale to which the shifty, shifting character of this part of the world lends substance.