Francis Jay, a Nineties person, streetwise but eco-friendly, smart but naive, makes a fool of himself at the Booker Prize ceremony and is determined to salvage his career as a journalist after the collapse of the Sunday newspaper that paid him. Jay embarks on a quest to find one of the greatest philosophers and political thinkers of the modern age, celebrated and respected in academic circles, yet of such obscure origins that he finds it almost impossible to penetrate the myth of the elusive Doctor Bazlo Criminale. From European congress to congress, from woman to woman and from muse to muse, Jay pursues the mysterious, charismatic doctor. And slowly, the truth is revealed . . .