War and peace with a difference
"In the first half of the book Cocks tells of his time fighting in the Rhodesian war as a stick leader in the Police Anti-Terrorist Unit. The fighting is brutal and the young men are callous and hardened. Family life is at the bottom of their list of priorities. Tops are killing, drinking and spending time with their co-warriors. It is a time of violence and hatred for their enemy; the only people close to them are their colleagues.
While this is shocking enough, it is the longer war with himself that horrifies. Cocks plunges into failed businesses, drink and drugs in his desperate fight to forget the horror of his past life and settle into the new land called Zimbabwe, where his enemy is now his equal. His examination of himself, then and now, is one of the bravest stories of war, the cruelty men can inflict on each other, and how difficult it is to come to terms with peace."- Natal Mercury