Set in the 19th-century Boer Republic of Transvaal, Southern Africa, the Boer Dirk van Zyl leads his band of vagabonds in raids on African villages, capturing children to be traded for cattle and sold into labour on the Boer farms.
A missionary, Albert Nachtigal, strives to save his mission station from losing Christian converts to a successful African preacher.
A notorious thief, Msuthu, acting undercover as bodyguard to an African king, is the secret middleman in trading children between the vagabonds and corrupt officials of the Boer republican government.
Albert Nachtigal abhors the trade but, in his efforts to thwart the success of the African preacher, the politically naïve missionary falls under the spell of power-hungry Boer politicians seeking to expand the trade, inadvertently leading the republic into war.
Of Vagabonds, Missionaries and Thieves is a startling novel about two African kingdoms, a fledgling Boer republic and a war that brings about the beginning of the end of the shocking child trade in Southern Africa during the 19th century. Set against the background of the rolling savannah and grasslands of the African Highveld, the author lucidly captures the characters as they fall foul of each other in this tale of greed, corruption and hunger for power.

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