‘We walked steadily towards the van.
Self-confidence is everything.
This is the ultimate face-off.
Suddenly the lions back off.’

Alienated from his English family by the secrecy surrounding the identity of his father, Rufus Jones escapes to Australia. He builds a new life as a professional gambler until a misunderstanding with the law finds him struggling to survive in prison.
There he stumbles across the BBC Wildlife series ‘The Human Planet.’

Seeing parallels between mankind’s fight for survival in the wild and his fight for survival in prison, he adopts the episode ‘Grasslands: Roots of Power’ as his life model.

But his prison escapades leave him a marked man. Even on release he needs all the cunning and courage of a Kalahari Bushman and the bravado of an Ethiopian Cowboy to survive; especially when a chance meeting with his father leads him to understand who he truly is.