Holding themes of race, religion and betrayal within its sprawling pages, Fatima Bhutto’s second novel tells the stories of three young people, from Karachi and Portsmouth, whose fates intertwine in the middle of the desert in Mosul, at the heart of the Islamic State. Anita Rose, Sunny and Monty come from very different origins but are united in their dissonance with the world, one perpetuated by a combination of poverty, isolation and discrimination. This urgent novel responds to our political times but is much more than an exploration of radicalism – it is an interrogation of what drives the decisions of the young, buffeted as they are by the forces of a cruel, unsparing world.