Enthusiastic young vet Jill Blake arrives in the dusty one-horse town of Paringa to find only a curt note directing her to her spartan new home. When her new boss, the notoriously "difficult" Kate McDonald, turns up, her attitude is as dry as the drought-stricken landscape.

Jill is shocked by the austerity of life in the drought stricken area, and is sensitive to every sign of distress and decline. From the bruise on Gail Klein's cheek to Kate's attempt to exclude her from Tom Huppatz's father's funeral, Jill senses there is much amiss in this place, and it goes far beyond the lack of rain.

Achmed Aziz, an Iraqi agronomist, arrives on a study tour and Kate fears he will submit a report on the condition of the local sheep. Having rebuffed Jill's attempts to empathise with her, Kate then forces her to co-operate with a plan to cover up the sheep problem until the drought breaks, after which it will be irrelevant.