Returning to Burma to teach for a month, Dr. George Daniels and his wife had not expected to get involved in a war. But a renegade colonel disrupts the balance of power between the military dictatorship and the insurgent hill armies, flooding the Thai border with refugees. George discovers information crucial to ending the conflict - and his wife is held hostage to prevent his using it - at the Flame Tree truce conference. The story of a man who has spent a lifetime avoiding confrontation, and who now finds himself in a mediator's role between a dictatorship and rebel armies fighting for survival.