The story is fiction based on fact. It takes place in New Zealand in the years 2002 and 2003, and concerns a pharmaceutical company which manufactures a range of drugs that cause serious physical and mental illnesses. To suppress complaints about the serious adverse reactions and give the company a financial edge in the market, political co-operation has been bought from three high ranking members of parliament.

The matter is brought to the attention of an investigative journalist, John Harmon, after the suicide of a woman who had taken the latest and still experimental drug, bendiazide. Harmon finds that the prescribing doctor, Brian Jackson, is particularly active in the testing field. He works for a number of companies who pay him $2000 for each patient upon whom he tests their drugs, earning him in the vicinity of $500,000 per annum. In exchange, he supplies the manufacturing companies with glowing reports which ensure approval for the marketing of the substances in question.

A suicide . . . leaks about the drug companies practices . . . a terrible beating . . . the disappearance of the Prime Minister, his colleagues and their families . . . everything culminates in a hold-your-breath court trial.

"And what is a bounty hunter, sir?"
"Why, young man, bounty hunters in our industry, are general practitioners who supply the specialists with their raw materials."
"Raw materials, sir?"
"Patients, dear boy, patients!"
"But sir, what if they're not sick?"
"Then, dear boy, they very soon will be!"

  Gurli Bagnall, 1999