The central figure of this novel is Will Hobbs, in his late fifties, a retired American journalist living alone in London in the quiet comfort of his big house in Queen's Gate, his wife Rennie having died two years earlier. Harrison develops him as intelligent, capable, competent in his profession as a journalist, sociable, sensitive, caring.

He is also a chef, a culinary expert who can and does prepare feasts throughout the novel, sometimes in the most unlikely situations. Harrison's characterization of Hobbs in this particular reveals him to be a nurturing, caring man. By cooking he gives and sustains life; by refusing to kill his captors when he has a reasonable opportunity to do so, he enacts a belief in the sanctity of life, a rare quality amidst the insanity of the intertribal warfare in Rwanda. This warfare serves as both background and foreground of Will's search...