When a heart attack kills his father, young architect Nick abandons his comfortable London life to volunteer abroad for a year - a last chance to prove himself, and atone for old sins. But in a remote village on the edge of the Sahara, dangerous currents soon engulf him: a simmering family conflict, hidden violence and fanaticism, his host's lonely wife hiding secrets of her own. From the award-winning author of "Ishmael's Oranges".