Nine days is a long time in Coolsville. More than enough time for Dr. Kiely Flanagan to shop business mogul J.P. Gillespie to a scandal-hungry media, collect the bounty and split for the sun. Time enough, Marshall McLemon hopes, to secure the backing he needs for his online museum exhibit, getting him - work wise at any rate - out of boresville and into something real.

Papa Charlie McCormack is racing against the clock to discover if Sister Jasmine Ylang-Ylang is the type of nun that goes in for celibacy or not, and the directors of the WentWest Inc, are anxious to see an end to the year-long plague visited upon them by the cyber-terror organisation known as Mantra.

Whether any of them succeed is something else, as one thing depends on the other in this finely balanced, gripping and often hilarious satire.