Granville Jones is at the end of his life. "One of the greats of old-time Fleet Street," once a famous world-roving correspondent, is now self-exiled on an island Emirate in the Gulf, an old and forgotten man, long eclipsed by rising stars of television journalism. When the coup breaks, it seems that Jones is the last to know. As this story of the early 1950's unfolds, we learn of the great love affair that brought him to his island. Both the ancient love and the indissoluble bonds between Jones and the deposed Emir are caught up by the old man's professional demon. We follow Jones, move by move, playing his endgame with the fragments of physical and mental powers still vouchsafed him.