1969. The Nigerian civil war has attracted a strange mix of idealists and mercenaries. We meet them in scenes of nightly chaos. Large aircraft come and go on this temporary airstrip in the bush. Overhead, Nigerian bombers wait for easy targets. Food and medical supplies come in, some dying babies leave.

John A. Moose, a taciturn Canadian Indian working as a mechanic, and his friend Will van der Molen, watch the high hopes for a truly independent Black African nation collapse into a grim struggle for survival. And then a small problem appears in the form of a little boy, smuggled onto their airplane by a desperate mother. Unwilling to give his name he becomes Tim, John A.'s `pet African'.

With the inevitable defeat, and retreat to a nearby Portuguese prison colony, Tim leaves his homeland and grows up as John A.'s son in the Canadian North. Seventeen years later, the strangest of circumstances pulls an unwilling John A. back to Nigeria on a seemingly impossible task. His adopted son insists on going along. A strange re-union of war veterans follows. Only Tim can find a way to save his troubled saviors.

Especially when dealing with the desperate plight of the starving Biafrans, the novel can be simultaneously gripping and distressing. Brandis's powers of description are vivid, and his evocation of atmosphere almost tangible. But this is not just the story of an international tragedy. It becomes a suspenseful tale of adventure and misadventure, and the characters come alive. We follow his cast through the final desperate days of the relief flights into Biafra from the island of Sao Tome, to the improbable later reunion of the central characters in Canada many years later.

This is the first novel of what is to be a trilogy, and I await the further unfolding of this tale with interest.

Peter Reed University of Minnesota


A Fascinating Read   October 23, 2005
This book is precious perhaps because it conveys what other books like Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse V have done so well. That is to describe the absurd and common manner in which rational human beings see fit to slaughter each other in remote corners of the world while many of us in the more well fed areas never take the time to notice. For those that have never been touched by the horrors of war consider yourself lucky, but take the time to leaf through this book and realize what takes place as the result of political complacency. This is a tale of those that refused to be complacent, a tale of determined bravery against insurmountable odds, that in the end were not surmounted. It is the story of a noble group of strangers who fought a war and lost, but found redemption.