At first glance you might assume you are watching a war movie. After all, the setting is contemporary Afghanistan and the protagonist is Jeremie Renier’s French army officer, commander of a small squad on a remote outpost in Wakhtan Valley, near the Pakistan border. In fact the fighting has subsided here, and while relations with the local villagers are tense there appears to be no immediate danger.

All the more perplexing, then, when one of Captain Bonassieu’s men disappears from his observation point in the middle of the night. The soldier on duty with him must surely have fallen asleep, but it’s not at all clear whether he’s gone AWOL, or been captured by the enemy. Then another soldier vanishes. Again, without a trace. And little by little the true nature of Clement Cogitore’s fascinating metaphysical mind-twister begins to reveal itself.