William Barnes is a 43-year-old ecologist in Hong Kong whose life has been turned upside down since Eva, his Chinese wife, was arrested on a charge of conspiracy to murder her boss.

Desperate to keep this arrest a secret from his friends and colleagues, and to protect his two young children, Barnes finds himself reluctantly drawn into a cathartic reunion at his old school – the scene of a childhood trauma – and a weekend at the Hong Kong rugby sevens tournament with a group of former classmates, during which his sense of alienation and despair swells to a climax.