"Emmanuel Cooper's life is finally back on track when a request comes from Colonel van Niekerk on the eve of his wedding and Cooper, with Shabalala, must report to the local police station in Balgowan, a small trading post in the Natal Midlands. There has been an anonymous phone tip claiming that "something bad" has happened on Little Flint Farm. Emmanuel knows that his boss would not send two city detectives into isolated farm country without good cause ... Cooper and Shabalala head into the Midlands where horse stables and cultivated fields dot the wide valleys. The Station Sergeant's books are clean, except for a minor matter: the disappearance of an adolescent Zulu girl from her family kraal in the wild foothills of the Drakensberg. Who is this she, this fifteen-year-old named "Amahle," the beautiful one? Where has she gone and why is the local Sergeant so reluctant to search for her?."

Includes reading group guide with questions and topics for discussion.