A doctor arrives in legendary Gundagai, Australia. Passionate about the new medicine and Dr. Lister's pioneering surgery, Louis Gabriel is fired with hope and determination. But he is new, black and overqualified, in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Louis Gabriel champions modern medicine, but his engagement with Gundagai's colourful characters sets him back. His enemies are many. The White Australia presses, the Jimmy Blacksmith murders frighten, and the Boer War divides. Disease and plague strike down many. Only his alliance with townswomen might see the new hospital built.
Having loved and lost, with Federation, he gambles everything for progress, love and acceptance.