A group of English school children have gone to Africa to camp out in the remote plains, help the local children build a school and assist with an archeological dig. The book opens 3 days after 3 of them (Joe, Matt and Anna) have disappeared together with a reporter(Charly) and a local boy ( Silowa). Charly's younger sister Ella and a detective called Murothi travel back to the camp site with Joe, who has been found on the opposite side of the mountain range Chomlaya that towers over the camping ground, with no memory of where the others are or how he got there. Murothi soon discovers a seething undercurrent of racism and bullying by the head teacher Miss Strutton and her favorite pupil Sean, and many other puzzling happenings - where are the journalist's meticiously kept notebooks, Anna's camp journal and why do the local people believe the area to be a place of death? Great intriguing book where I felt real contempt for some of the characters.p.63-67 Joe wakes up in hospital and faces the policemen trying to recall what has happened to his friends.