Dawson's life is going nowhere. Out of work and nearly out of money, he is forlornly pursuing the love of Rachel Whyte. But Rachel is engaged to Pat Bootle, an apparently successful local solicitor who has appeared from nowhere. Then, out of the blue, Dawson receives a job offer from his best friend, Alan Flannery, which involves him jumping on a plane to Australia to "await further instructions". But instructions about what? This is the start of a frantic chase around south eastern Australia with half the local underworld, the police and the intelligence agencies of three countries trying to catch up with Dawson. What is Flannery's game? Why has Pat Bootle turned up in Australia? Who is the beautiful but mysterious Lucy Smith? What is the teapot's secret? What has folk music got to do with anything? And how do guns actually work? Dawson's life will never be the same again.