A suicide bombing is being planned in Manchester, and Saleem Khan, an atheist, is carrying the bag

In 1960s Bradford, having left his lover, his job as a teacher and his home in rural Pakistan, Saleem finds the north of England crackling with racism, and a job working in a mill on an all-Asian night-shift. And when the mills close down, he finds himself listlessly driving a taxi.

Two decades later, a return to Pakistan leads Saleem down a dangerous path. Drawn into the turmoil of war, he meets Gulzarina, the woman whose life in a conflict without end finally allows him to make sense of his own actions.

Moving, tense and thought-provoking, Tariq Mehmood explores the decisions and happenstances that determine a life within the malestom of our times, and what makes an unlikely fanatic.