Artem Samsurov, a charismatic protégé of Lenin and an ardent socialist,
reaches sanctuary in Australia after escaping his Siberian labour camp
and making a long, perilous journey via Japan. But Brisbane in 1911
turns out not to be quite the workers' paradise he was expecting, or the
bickering local Russian émigrés a model of brotherhood. As Artem helps
organise a strike and gets dangerously entangled in the death of another
exile, he discovers that corruption, repression and injustice are almost
as prevalent in Brisbane as at home. Yet he finds fellow spirits in a
fiery old suffragette and a distractingly attractive married woman, who
undermines his belief that a revolutionary cannot spare the time for
relationships. When the revolution dawns and he returns to Russia, will
his ideals hold true?
