Past Booker longlistee and New York Times notable book choice Paul Pickering isn't the kind of author to research via the internet.

For his latest novel, set in Afghanistan, he spent time on such dangerous terrain that he was moved to thank "my donkey man and my donkey, for being very cheerful and steady under fire". When Stef Penney won the Costa award for The Tenderness Of Wolves, many believed she had spent time in the wilds of Canada, so convincing was her portrayal. But she had never visited the country. Can real-life experience supercede home-based research? The final chapters of this novel strongly suggest it does.

Pickering's young American protagonist, Malone, is a pilot with an aid airline in Kabul on the eve of the 2009 elections. He has been enlisted by the wealthy daughter of a Pakistani former government agent, Fatima Hamza, to help with her vanity project, a personal retelling of The Wizard Of Oz, which is her father's favourite film.

Meanwhile, Malone's practising-Christian surgeon wife Kim is trying to get pregnant with no success. Their marriage is disintegrating, so they're both happy to accept commissions elsewhere – Kim goes to Kandahar to help with a Red Cross emergency, and Malone to Bamiyan. His mission is two-fold: a video of Fatima's Wizard Of Oz has been leaked to YouTube and fundamentalists are calling for her blood. A young girl is mistakenly killed and her family vow revenge on her. But Fatima also wants to retrace her father's roots.

Perhaps the Beckett quote Pickering uses at the beginning of his novel should warn of the outcome. Indeed, narrative tension is undercut further by the relentless violence around all the characters which makes staying alive a miraculous event – Kim's partner is beheaded on the way to Kandahar and she is taken prisoner; Malone and Fatima embark on a Last Of The Mohicans-style chase through the mountainous terrain of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, constantly under fire from both the Taliban and the American and British forces.

There's no doubt that Pickering's experiences in Afghanistan have helped immeasurably when describing the detail of Malone and Fatima's journey. But it has also given him an insight to the country's people. His admiration and sympathy for an embattled but proud people is clear. Even when Kim is released, after saving the life of a Taliban commander, she is still in danger – the same commander has ordered that she be placed in front of any firing line when the occupation forces attack. But an older fighter removes her from risk, saying that he has daughters, unlike the young commander.

This is a highly sympathetic viewpoint, designed to remind readers that, under the bombs and the terrorism are simply ordinary people like anyone else, cast into extraordinary situations. No-one is tortured or raped or beaten when they are captured in Pickering's Afghanistan; indeed, Kim even has a night of passion with one of her captors, an event that seemed just too romantic to be true, and too far from Kim's devout Christian upbringing. Part of the problem with this incident is that we see too little of Kim's story and character to make it convincing. Most of Pickering's focus is on the central relationship between Malone and Fatima, a game of cat and mouse, where the alluring Fatima seems always to be promising something more, leading the ever-willing Malone into further danger.

If Malone seems a little out of his depth, a brave and stoical individual who nevertheless has shied away from adventure until now, Fatima is his reckless counterpoint, seemingly oblivious to the dangers around her. There's a good reason for that recklessness, and Pickering's closing chapters are among the best, and most moving, of the novel. It is here that his experience really comes into its own.

Over The Rainbow

Paul Pickering

Simon and Schuster, £16.99