Broadcast journalist Nix Mniki finds herself, reluctantly, in ‘frontier territory’ – the rural Eastern Cape – after being persuaded by her formidable mother to search for the daughter of an old friend. Boniswa, the missing woman, is principal of the once-famous Girdwood College, a school almost destroyed by the country’s recent history, Boniswa is determined to restore it to its former glory and to enable children from the destitute community surrounding the school to succeed, despite crumbling infrastructure, insufficient resources and inadequate teachers. Born of Xhosa and German parentage and raised in privileged suburbia, Nix is ignorant of the real impact of the ‘education crisis’. She must confront corruption, violence, desperate children and revelations about her own family and identity as she discovers that Boniswa did not disappear voluntarily.