Charlie Fairburn, successful screenwriter of "Aliens with a Human Heart, ex-husband and absent father, has been given six months to live. He resolves to stake half his fortune on a couple of turns of the roulette wheel and, to his agent's disgust, to write a novel - about death. Set on a train, it involves a group of characters locked in a debate about the nature of consciousness. As the train gets stuck at Didcot Junction, Charlie becomes more passionately entangled with the dangerous young woman who is his nemesis.
