Spy novel, theme paranormal phenomena. 'Fairfield' is the code name for a Russian research scientist who migrated to the West following the end of the Cold War. A specialist of neurology and psychic manipulation, he leaves Russia to settle in Australia. The other leading character is an Irish journalist, Finnegan, really a double agent, who has Fairfield abducted in July 1997 during a trip to Chicago for a conference on neurophysiology. Finnegan is on a mission to obtain the research work in parapsychology and psychic manipulation done in Russia by Fairfield during the eighties. To settle the issue an international conference is held in Melbourne in 1998, after Finnegan has got the key to the documents the USA has bought from Russia. Meanwhile the 'Sherpas' have disappeared, and the outcome for Fairfield, Finnegan, Glenelg and Diane (Fairfield's daughter) is dramatic. A second part of the book describes the narrator's forebears, who settled in South Australia in the mid nineteenth century. The diary describes his trip to Australia in 1998 to do research on this subject, and to finish writing the spy novel. The result is a literary 'collage' where pieces of 'fact' and 'fiction' come together in sharp contrast or counterpoint.