There is nothing pleasant about being eleven in Mount Gambier and suddenly have your mother and sister disappear to another state, and to have a foul-tempered bitch take your mother's place. It is even less pleasant when no-one explains what the hell is going on. Being dirt-poor doesn't help, either, and being forced to leave school at 14 to take a menial job just compounds the misery. So it was with Mike Pitt, who eventually 'escaped' to the city and journalism, but never losing the frustration of simply not knowing. After 17 years of "the not knowing is driving me crazy", he returns to Mount Gambier, ostensibly to confront his long-estranged father but with the primary objective of checking into the death of a friend whose fall from the local mountain was deemed an accident. What follows is police obstruction, local government furore, murder, family reconciliation, loving a beautiful woman (married, unfortunately) and corruption in political places.