Cry of the justice bird - Jon Haylett

Armstrong McKay is an ordinary Essex school teacher whose life would have remained contentedly mundane had he not fallen for Rebecca, a lovely, moral girl determined to make her contribution by taking a teaching contract in a small, central African country. Armstrong's life spirals out of control when she is killed in a road accident and, flying out to bring her body home, he discovers that Rebecca was butchered by a renegade gang rampaging across a countryside mangled by two civil wars. With the rule of law hardly extending beyond the main cities, Armstrong is faced with a stark choice: run home with his tail tucked between his legs, or mete out justice himself. Guided by Temba Mbanga, whose wife died with Rebecca, and goaded by the cry of Kisasi the Justice Bird, he sets about hunting the killers across a land slithering uncontrollably into the anarchy of yet another civil war. Armstrong's resilience, his humour, and his eye for a pretty girl carry him through as the two men wade deeper and deeper into a dark chaos of horror and destruction.