In this grim, unsettling and shocking book, Miles Bredin, a British journalist based in Kenya, attempts to travel by train from Angola to Mozambique. He finds this largely impossible due to political corruption, civil war, poverty, and neglect of the infrastructure, and paints a portrait of continent in agony, caused largely by Western duplicity and corrupt local leaders. The truly disturbing aspect of reading this book 30 years after it was written is to reflect on how little has changed in the countries he travels through. It's an insightful, disturbing and provocative book.