It is 1950 and the Federation of Malaya is in the throes of the Malayan Emergency. The British are struggling to defeat the communist terrorists and deal with rising nationalism in the colony. Ferdach O'Haney arrives in Malaya as a young Anglo-Irish man to serve the Federation government, and he is plunged into the nitty-gritty of Malayan Emergency duties in the New Villages and in the communist occupied jungles of Perak. Gregarious and bisexual, O Haney befriends communist terrorists and nationalist sympathisers, experiences the bloody Maria Hertogh race riots, and comes up against prejudiced colonial administrators. O’Haney meets General Briggs and Chin Peng, the leader of the communist guerrillas, and he reveals new information about the assassination of Sir Henry Gurney.