Johns and Tostig are two very different men aiming for the same goal: to get their teams of men, supplies and mules to the ‘Agreed Furthest Point’ from civilisation. Johns insists they are not taking part in any contest, but when he decides not to take the same route as Tostig the latter declares: ‘if it’s a race he wants he can damn well have one!’

A race it is, then, and the scene is set for Magnus Mills’s fifth novel, Explorers of the New Century. The clear favourites are Tostig’s smaller, more efficient team, with their carefully delineated hierarchy (‘Guthrum,’ the leader says, ‘you remain my trusted Number Two’, and Number Three gets similarly reassured