It's October 1948. Northern Rhodesia.

Having displeased his superiors, colonial officer James Lancaster is sent to Feira in the sweltering Zambezi valley, where he's to replace the outgoing District Commissioner, Barnaby Drayton.He's been warned to keep his reports dull and unexceptional if he habours any hope for a better posting.

There seems little chance of that: he arrives on the day Drayton's wife dies and he finds the tiny community riven with suspicions and hate.The thermometer keeps rising, the rains hold off, tempers flare.

Father Bravachko and the clinic nurse say Elizabeth Drayton died of natural causes. The drums, muttering in the hot and humid nights, speak of a witchdoctor's revenge.

Or is there a cold-blooded murderer on this remote and isolated station?