The much lauded poetic and polemical documentary about the standardisation of Australian rail gauges, emphasising the economic cost in times of peace and the possible threat to security in times of war. Heyer expertly highlights the problems involved, exploring the five changes in the size of rail track between the mainland states.
Convicted killer Jim Holden is rescued from the sheriff by his gang, led by Mason and Riley. He is out to get the Hathaway Stage superintendent George Bannister, who was responsible for his conviction and learns the Bannister, his niece (Kay) and Hal Hathaway, son of the stage line owner, are on a cross-country stage.
Paris, 1857. While on trial for moral outrage, French writer G. Flaubert tells the court and the audience the true story of the heroine of his novel Madame Bovary, a sensitive but capricious woman whose desperate efforts to overcome the bourgeois conventions of a dull, provincial life led her family first to ruin and disrepute and finally to the abyss of tragedy.
Maggi continues her forever-ever efforts to crash Manhattan's top society, while Jiggs still mingles with his old construction cronies at the bar of Dinty Moore on 10th Avenue.
