This is a work of fiction, the last volume of a trilogy that began with Links and Knots. If it is foretold that all good things come to an end, here’s proof.

But from the pen of Nuruddin Farah, a Somali national, who is now resident in Cape Town, it reads like a true life account of the scourge of piracy that currently plagues the coastline of his motherland. It would be difficult to convince those who watch it – should a movie about this book be made – that the reel version is not a documentary.