Soldiers that never sleep

It is Angola, 1993, and the country is in the grip of longtime internal conflict between the government MPLA troops and Jonas Savimbi's Unita rebels. No end to the impasse seems in sight.

Unlike many African countries, Angola is not critically affected by the ravages of drought, and, with its mineral resources, should be a regional superpower, a worthy rival to South Africa.

Yet the war has ruined vast tracts of land, while battered vehicles run on the smoothest of tyre-treads, often without headlights or indicators on pot-holed, crumbling roads.

It is also leaving a deadly collection of landmines, which Hurley uses as the focus of his story. Africa is estimated to have 18 to 30 million mines, crippling rural economies. The United Nations Protocol on Landmines lists Angola among the 'worst affected'.

British-based Molly Jordan ventures to Angola on a truth-seeking mission after her son, James, is killed by a mine. He had been working for aid organisation Terra Sancta.

Her trauma is deepened when on the eve of her departure, her Lloyd's underwriter husband, who is in dire financial straits, heads off in his yacht for an unknown destination.