A new departure for the author of Firebird and Eye of Ra, this novel is a dramatic, contemporary thriller: a David and Goliath story featuring western might against desert tribes, and the man who becomes their champion.The book opens with the discovery of a clearly modern corpse in a desert archaelogical site, with a heavy pack laden with packets of strange soils. Dan Truman, the leader of the expedition, returns the pack in a container he was sending home to be forwarded to the dead mans business address.So begins an extraordinary adventure. Truman the man with a mysterious past is persuaded to go back to Sudan, to get a remote and hostile tribe to allow mining of the incredibly valuable minerals discovered on their lands. But he, and his backers, are not the only people to be after the rare earth nor does his backer turn out to be what he expected. And what are the various elements of the SIS, the South African conglomerate, renegade Russians and Serbians doing out there And prepared to use far more violent methods than Trumans plansRescued by the tribe themselves from a brutal attack and now kept captive by them, Truman unsure who his greatest enemies are becomes fascinated by the tribes way of life, by the woman who is their prophetess and by his gradually returning memories of his previous life.The action is fast and furious, from helicopter crashes to desert storms, from camel charges to business skulduggery, and the desert scenes are powerful and lyrical, visually brilliant. There is a wonderful range of characters, wily Russians, tribal warriors, displaced SIS officers and most of all the reader shares in Trumans initiation into the ways of such a different society.