Myra Thomas, accused of murdering her philandering husband, is found not guilty by a sympathetic jury. But while travelling from Adelaide to Perth on the Transcontinental Railway express, she mysteriously disappears during the overnight journey across the vast, featureless desert. Detective-Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte takes the case and sets off to search for her over the flat wasteland of the Nullabor Plain. At first it seems that the harsh environment will give him no clues, but Bony soon finds more than he bargained for ? landing himself in a bigger mystery, and a fight for survival ...