Dominic Wilson, a Canadian businessman in Hong Kong in Charles Foran's House on Fire, is on the cusp of turning 40 when he becomes obsessed with a short story set in a repressive country called Gyatso, a fictional version of Tibet. To satisfy his curiosity, recapture his glory days as a journalist, or perhaps play out a strangely literary kind of mid-life crisis, he journeys to that country's capital. Dominic locates the writer--or at least thinks he has--but soon finds himself in a Kafkaesque scenario, detained by the supposed head of the tourist office, befriended by a mysterious Irish-Asian man, and basically in over his head in an increasingly confusing state of affairs.