Failed Shakespearean actor and would-be private investigator Will Power's unique detective skills are, once again, in demand. The Japanese army is rampaging through the islands of the South Pacific, and Australia's front line of defence is a top-secret, crack division of men embedded deep in the tropical wilderness of northern Australia. But something is threatening their vital, covert mission: one of this elite corps is a murderer, preying on his comrades, one by one.

With a case too sensitive to be trusted to the police, military intelligence turn to the one man whose singular combination of abilities make him capable of infiltrating the clandestine military operation and rooting out the killer.

William Power goes into deep cover, posing as a cheap, vaudeville entertainer on tour to relieve the troops. Enlisting the help of his brother, whose latent skills for female impersonation rise to the occasion, Will soon finds himself in the far-northern outback trying to raise the morale of a group of desperate young soldiers lying in wait for the arrival of Tojo's army — knowing all the while that one of them is the killer.