Djibouti - Elmore Leonard

Dara Barr, documentary filmmaker, is at the top of her game. She's covered Bosnian women, Neo-Nazis and post-Katrina New Orleans (for which she won an Oscar), but now she's looking for an even bigger challenge. So she and her right-hand-man - a six-foot-six African-American called Xavier - head to Djibouti on the Horn of Africa to tackle modern-day pirates. Once they start filming, they find a whole lot more than they bargained for, and quickly learn that almost no one in Djibouti is what he seems.

A mob of colourful characters patrols the seas, including a pirate chief with a taste in fine cars, and an Oxford-educated sheikh with scams of his own. And then there's the gun-toting playboy Billy Wynn: Texan billionaire, collector of supermodels, and law unto himself. But even he hasn't reckoned on an appearance from James Russell, an American al Qaeda convert who wants to blow up something big. As hijacked tankers line up like floating bombs, Dara and Xavier know it's time for a showdown. But which guy is going to get the prize - and what will he have to do to get it?