Akram's war (Main)

One night, Akram Khan walks out of his house, leaving behind his ageing parents and sleeping wife, towards an appointed time and place where is he supposed to detonate a bomb that will end his life and that of many innocent bystanders.

As he wanders through the town he encounters Angie, whose life has been scarred by addiction, madness, and the loss of custody of her child.

They form an unlikely closeness, borne of need and necessity.

Akram tells Angie about his childhood within the tight-knit Pakistani community, bound together by the casual racism of a Midlands town; his complex friendships among outcasts, with Dax Cogger, the gypsy boy who is beaten to death because he can't cry, and Adrian Hartley, son of a skinhead, who is linked to Akram through guilt and a dark secret; his disastrous years in the army; and his empty arranged marriage to a woman who remains a stranger.