While war historians may disagree over whether Japan had plans to invade Australia in WW2, all will agree three Japanese midget submarines came into Sydney Harbour with serious intent in 1942. But little has surfaced until now] of a fourth midget submarine and the story of survival of one of the Japanese crew. Alone and adrift, the youthful survivor was hauled aboard a coastal steamer only to be dumped on remote Lord Howe Island with another unwelcome passenger. The two survived in the wild for a while before an island woman came on the scene. Denied the pleasures of the island paradise, the Japanese submariner was inhumanely interned until an amorous liaison secured his passage to freedom. In 2006, 64 years later, bestselling Japanese novelist Hiraku Makimura lands in Sydney to speak at a writers' seminar. From the moment a young woman steps into his hotel room he is on an emotional rollercoaster, while driving a Subaru around Sydney turns into a fatal nightmare. The hotel receptionist is an added distraction, until a woman with her own agenda takes Makimura in hand, leading him surreally to an improbable rendezvous with the submerged past___an encounter that rocks him to the core of his being.