In the global drilling boom of the nineteen seventies, Simon Wimborne works on offshore oil rigs as a mudlogger, an uninspiring title for a job that combines tedium with sheer terror.
Meanwhile, Stan, a Polish father haunted by wartime memories, searches for Simon, who he believes to be his long-lost son given up for adoption at birth. The story draws the parallels between the lives of father and son, of young men of different generations thrust into danger.
From offshore Indonesia to the North Sea to Alberta Canada, the search ends off Canada's stormy east coast.