Set in 1930s Papua New Guinea, this novel is about three young, ground-breaking anthropologists caught in a love triangle that threatens their bonds, their careers and, ultimately, their lives. English anthropologist Andrew Bankson has been alone in the field for several years studying the Kiona river tribe in the Territory of New Guinea. Haunted by the memory of his brothers' deaths and increasingly frustrated and isolated by his research, Bankson is on the verge of suicide when a chance encounter with two colleagues, the controversial Nell Stone and her wry and mercurial Australian husband, Fen, pulls him back from the brink.