'Every new novel by Giles Foden is something to celebrate - my hand leaps to the shelf' PAUL THEROUX

'The most original and interesting novelist of his generation' ALLAN MASSIE, SCOTSMAN

2039, the Skeleton Coast of Namibia. 160,000 kilometres-square of ocean-crashed desert, littered with bones, shipwrecks and shattered dreams.

Cat Brosnan, a young scientist, has just arrived, aiming to track down a much-needed water source believed to lie hidden within this vast and hostile landscape. Six years before, the search for that same fabled aquifer had led Cat's own mother to abandon her daughter in Ireland, never to be heard of again.

Now Cat is ready to find out what happened to her mother, to succeed where she failed and finally discover the whereabouts of a freshwater reserve hidden under sand and rock. But she's not the only one looking for the aquifer: mining corporations want it, foreign governments too, never mind all those others who need it just to survive. In a world of sand, sun and water wars, the aquifer begins to seem like a fantasy, Cat's quest for it a mission to find her own true self.