Black Earth Rising

As a child, Kate Ashby was rescued from the horrific aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. She was adopted and brought up in Britain by Eve Ashby, a world-class international lawyer. Kate has long struggled to escape the shadow of her past, but is now returning to work as a legal investigator in the same chambers as Eve, under leading international lawyer Michael Ennis. Kate and Eve's relationship is strained to breaking point when a controversial militia leader, who had once fought to stop the genocide, is captured in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Eve takes on his prosecution at the International Criminal Court.

Eve's case prosecuting Simon Nyamoya begins at the International Criminal Court, but a shocking incident changes everything. To try and uncover the truth behind these events, Michael Ennis launches a new case and turns to Kate for help. They will be defending Alice Munezero, a Rwandan government official and an old friend of Michael and Eve's. Alice stands accused of a historic war crime - the murder of a French priest in Rwanda in 1994.

Still struggling with grief, Kate works with Michael to defend Alice Munezero from the charges laid against her in France. As shadowy forces try to prevent the truth being unearthed, Kate faces threats to her personal safety. Meanwhile Michael struggles with his health back in London. Can they both continue forward to gain an acquittal for Alice?

Kate and Michael finish their work on Alice's case in France but are shocked when an indicted Rwandan and Congolese war criminal, Patrice Ganimana, implicated in the Genocide, arrives in the UK. Excited by the chance to prosecute him, Michael is unsettled to learn that an old rival is handling his defence. Meanwhile this new arrival prompts Alice Munezero to delay her own return to Rwanda. As difficulties multiply for an extradition of Ganimana to the International Criminal Court, Kate and Michael's relationship begins to fray.

Blake Gaines, who has been handling Ganimana's defence, seems in danger of falling foul of those paying his legal fees. Alice Munezero tells Michael, for the first time, of her connection to the Rwandan president - Bibi Mundanzi. Meanwhile, Kate's rift with Michael deepens, and she becomes increasingly driven to help extradite Ganimana to face justice.

Patrice Ganimana's warnings about Kate's safety are borne out when Kate and Alice are both attacked. But Kate, nevertheless, continues her search for the case file her mother had prepared against Ganimana years before. But are establishment forces somehow closing ranks to impede bringing Ganimana to justice?

Kate and Florence return to the UK to continue the search for Eve Ashby's case file against Patrice Ganimana. But someone is ahead of them, stopping at nothing to kill and terrorise their way to the missing evidence. Meanwhile Michael in the UK, Alice Munezero in Rwanda and Eunice Clayton in the US believe the time has finally come to reveal the truth about a long-buried crime, which in turn exposes Kate to a dark truth about her own past.

In Rwanda, Alice Munezero languishes in custody. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kate fights against hostile locals as well as international forces to prove the truth of her personal history. Meanwhile in London, Michael delves into a deep political and financial conspiracy. Can he expose this in time, while Kate fights for her very life in an explosive climax?