Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By T.M Clark, Mira, $29.99.
It’s easy to see how the African backdrop comes ‘alive’ for Australian thriller writer Clark. She was born in Zimbabwe and completed her primary school years at boarding school in Bulawayo.
However, on weekends and holidays she explored their family ranch in Nyamandhlovu. Her idyllic childhood was totally different to her teenage years. After the death of her father, the family of five women moved to Kokstad, a rural town at the foot of the Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa, and the boarding school hostel became her home.
Clark, who combines her passion for storytelling with her love for Africa and writing fiction, is now living on a small island near Brisbane.
It’s the African landscape that presents a wide canvas for this vivid, action-packed adventure.
Chloe and her invalid father, Mike, once wealthy Zimbabwean landowners now have little to call their own. On the heels of a scandal five years ago, they relocated to South Africa. Being away at university, Chloe relied on her father’s best friend, Enoch and his son, Xo, to watch over Mike.
Unintentionally fatal results flow-on when Enoch steps in to help when Chloe is put in danger. With increasing pressure from a right-wing group on the police to charge Enoch, this mismatched family has no choice but to flee back to Zimbabwe. However, crossing the border will be dangerous and near impossible with their route taking them amid warring dissident armies and landmines, and their every footsteps are stalked by a shadowy ring of hunters.
The fugitives have a chance of making it home, only with help from Nick, formerly a soldier under Mike’s command. Nick, now a professional game ranger, has long struggled to come to terms with his fellow soldiers’ choices before their unit was abandoned. Is it possible that his past demons can put them all at risk? Does that mean the fugitives will have a change of making it home? Some interesting reading is in store to get the answers.
