Since Palmer's last novel, Macy Donovan, the union organizer of Golconda, is now a member of parliament, but he is still the same, vigorous, ebullient man among men. Of women, since his rejection by the brilliant girl Neda, he knows little. And now, knifed in a mysterious brawl, he is in a private hospital under the care of Dr Hugh McCoy and of Nurse Hegarty, with whose many-branched family he is ultimately to become involved