OPIS
With private security firms supplying bodyguards in every theatre of war, who will notice the emergence of a sexual psychopath from the ranks of the mercenaries? A gripping story of lurking menace told with all the hallmarks of Minette Walters' consummate style. When five women are brutally murdered in Sierra Leone, Reuters correspondent Connie Burns questions the arrest of three rebel soldiers for the crimes. No one listens. In the wake of a vicious civil war which saw hundreds of thousands killed and displaced, the rape and murder of women is of little consequence. And who cares if child soldiers are beaten into a confession?