In Edinburgh around the time of the Iraq war, three Zimbabwean immigrants deal with their regrets, their stifled ambitions and the difficulties of adapting to an alien society. The Magistrate is a former judge, now reduced to menial employment in a care home. The Mathematician is a hedonistic postgraduate economics student, while the Maestro is a white Zimbabwean withdrawing further into himself as he replaces human relationships with the moral certainties of literature. Unfortunately, none of these characters is allowed to breathe under the weight of Huchu’s relentless exposition, and the tangle of clichés and redundancies in his prose keeps their narratives free of any drama or tension. Although it offers an interesting glimpse into the world of ex-pat Zimbabwean politics, as a portrait of a city the book reduces Edinburgh to little more than a checklist of street names and bus routes.