Tessa Lowell is working in Uganda researching the effects of PTSD and war on child soldiers, when she is kidnapped by rebel forces. Isolated in an increasingly volatile situation, she tries to form a bond with thirteen-year-old Francis, already an experienced soldier and survivor of shocking violence.
In Melbourne, Tessa's parents learn government agencies can do little to help so they contact their son Stephen, an astute if manipulative businessman based in Cape Town who agrees to search for her but has reasons of his own to do so.
As Tessa's time runs out, her parents arrive in Uganda to hear awful news about what she has endured...and the devastating truth about the kind of man their son has become. Only they have the power to stop a terrible injustice. But at what cost to their family?