Myra Thomas, an acquitted murderess, seems to have walked off the train somewhere in the middle of the arid, tree-less Nullabor Plain. Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte is the only policeman capable of coping with such country. With two camels and a dog, he sets out. He finds a missing woman and a dead man; he finds a murderess and five murderers and on top of all this, he lands in prison in the middle of thousands of square miles of uninhabitable desert.