A Cross for Two Graves

Now, expertly weaving re-creation of factual historical events into a deceptively simple fictional account of one quest to find a crashed air force aircraft and the remains of those flying into battle aboard it, author Alan Thrush delivers a tantalising subtext: the complexities of post-traumatic stress and its impact. The result is a moving account of the long-lasting effects of modern warfare on soldiers - their eternal burden woven into a tapestry of love and war, lifelong friendships and debts of honour forged in battle.

As the story ratchets back and forth in time between the glass-and-steel skylines of present-day London and Johannesburg, and the harsh, unforgiving bush of the central African battleground, the unearthing of buried memories begins to claw at mental scar tissue carefully cultivated to mask personal pain, while the search itself threatens to reveal a dangerous truth. For aboard that helicopter on the day of its destruction was a capture - a prisoner taken in combat and a man who survived it to become a leading figure on the playing fields of today's politics. His ties to his former enemy must be protected ... at all costs.

'Atmospheric. I could not put it down.' James Mitchell, books editor and author of Tartan on the Veld