Milly Guildford, recently divorced, takes a job in the Congo, working to bring good governance to a system riddled with corruption and mismanagement. She soon finds that life in Kinshasa is never straightforward. Coming face-to-face with the Congo's bizarre bureaucracy, which seems to have grown even more powerful through the years of anarchy, she collaborates with a longtime friend, a married man who lives in London, to write a book about it. Collecting material for the book entails copying secret documents, a dangerous activity. It gives her friend an excuse to come to Kinshasa, which he does for much longer than is strictly necessary. Both the book and the man bring Milly more than her fair share of problems. Interwoven with this are accounts of her travels in the country, her bizarre social life, and her efforts to understand how things are done in Kinshasa.