Although her son, Jim, apparently died in an accident. Ruth St Just is doubtful. She might not have understood why he joined a religious community on the tiny African island of Ellamore, or even why he had gone abroad in the first place, but the manner of his death doesn't ring true. The Foreign Office are unconcerned however. No matter how much this obsessive woman badgers them, investigations go no further. Frustrated, Ruth takes matters into her own hands. She sets off on a personal mission to Africa, determined to expose the sordid truth behind the sinister sect and the mysterious, charismatic woman who reigns over it, and to uncover among the bizarre band of misfits and eccentrics, the disturbing circumstances that led to the death of her son.