The dreams of a pencil pusher longing for adventure and distant shores come true when the maritime transport company where he works sends him on a trip to 1928 French Indochina. But Theodore Poussin is about to get more than he bargained for as he sets sail on the Cap Padaran: a mysterious, poetry-reciting man with ominous predictions about his future follows him everywhere; stories surrounding his late uncle Captain Steene, whose grave he promised his family he would find, are vague and contradictory; and he somehow ends up in the crossfire of a guerilla war near the Chinese border, forced to run for his life and toward even more unexpected events.

More mayem and misadventures follow Theodore Poussin after he's left stranded in Singapore, desperately trying to work his way toward a return passage to Europe. Things seem to be looking up when he inadvertently inherits a pirate ship and starts making a living peddling merchandise to various ports in the Pacific, until his fate catches up with him yet again. Soon he's wanted for murder, hiding out in opium dens, running from law enforcement with the help of mysterious new allies, and being recruited for a most unlikely mission on a faraway island...

Former shipping company clerk turned adventurer Theodore Poussin arrives on the oyster farming island of Long Andju in Malaysia looking for a mysterious woman who has gone missing. She disappeared during a bloody coup d'etat in which her father lost control of the land. A contaminated oyster reef has rendered the last pearl harvest worthless, and tensions are rising on the small island, as pirates, sailors, assassins, rajahs, foreign businessmen, diplomats, and amorous youths all scheme to get what they want, be it power, gold, pearls, or the affection of their heart's desire. The mysterious Mr. November is once again along for the ride, in a tale dripping with the mood and humidity of its tropical colonial setting.