1996: in a Ugandan dive bar, the 'freight dogs' gather. An anarchic group of mercenary pilots from Texas, Russia, Kenya and Belgium who transport weapons between warring African nations, without allegiance.
And tonight they have a new recruit - Manu, a 19-year-old cowherd fleeing Congo's bloody war.
Taken in by this band of unlikely brothers, he's soon seeing his vast country from above and falling in love with flying.
But no matter how fast he flies, trouble follows closely behind. And when the past erupts back into this new life, Manu is forced to leave behind African skies for the chilly embrace of northern Europe.
Will Manu be able to reinvent himself yet again? And is Belgian volcanologist Anke Desseaux the answer to his problems - or simply another one of them?
From the writer of The Last King of Scotland comes an unforgettable story of survival - about how to live and love after trauma, set against a backdrop of world-shaking conflict.
It is autumn, 1996. Patrick Rwema, a seventeen-year-old Congolese farm boy, is tending cattle in the Kivu hills when the troops of Zairian dictator President Mobutu appear and slaughter the herd. Patrick is helpless to defend his home and is forced to watch as his parents are killed. Too late, a rebel group led by Laurent Kabila emerges from the jungle, causing the soldiers to flee. Far from safe, Patrick has no choice but to join Kabila's boy rebels.
After months of witnessing and taking part in unspeakable brutality, one day, fleeing the scene of a killing, Patrick stumbles upon an airfield and meets a pilot, Norm Cogan, who helps him to escape Zaire. But Cogan isn't all that he seems, and when he bets another pilot that he can train Patrick to fly in six months, he brings the young man into the world of 'freight dogs' - a dangerous world of mercenaries and weapons, where money trumps honour and contracts are agreed regardless of side.
Foden is a brilliant voice and African observer.
