When Brockes was 10 years old, her mother said, 'One day I will tell you the story of my life and you will be amazed.' Growing up in a tranquil English village Emma knew very little of her mother's earlier life. She knew she had grown up in South Africa and had seven siblings... There was mention, once, of a trial, but most of the past was a mystery. When her mother died of cancer, Emma, by now a journalist, investigated the untold story, in a search which took her to South Africa and an extended family she had never met...