Only one person could have made successful prosecutor Sarah Barcant leave New York and return home to the rural town in South Africa she had fled years before: Ben. Once her mentor and inspiration, he has summoned her back to help him with one last case. Dirk Hendricks is also heading home. He is being driven, handcuffed, to the police station where he was once a deputy, there to meet his former prisoner, the man he tortured, Alex Mpondo. These three are drawn by the Truth Commission like a magnet back into their pasts, setting the stage for the moment of collision. But the real truth will be felt in the wings: in the fatal strain in a marriage, in the violated memory of a sweet son, and in a victim's understanding of his own complicity. Red Dust is Gillian Slovo's moving exploration of the intimacy of enemies and the consequences of truth.