New Guinea. Joe, the natural son of an Australian gold prospector, has set up a coffee plantation in partnership with his Ganiga half-brothers. But the chronicle that began with First Contact and continued with Joe Leahy’s Neighbours turns to tragedy. Coffee prices collapse, tribal war breaks out, the beans rot because they cannot be harvested, and the bank calls in Joe’s loan. Relations between Joe and his Ganiga partners break down. Tradition and development: the difficult position of a man torn between two cultures.