A 1,000-mile trek through the Caucasus finally clears the mind

It takes a brave writer, even in an age transfixed by the workings of our inner woo, to bare their soul on the page. Tom Parfitt, a former Moscow correspondent, was scarred by the horrifying Beslan school siege and massacre which he saw unfold in North Ossetia in 2004. For years he was haunted by a recurring dream of ‘endless purgatory’ in which a grief-stricken woman, who has just learnt that her child has been killed in the terrorist attack, falls through the air, groaning like a wounded animal.

There are scrapes and scares – how could there not be? Wolves, bears and dogs are regular worries

An outdoors type who enjoyed a bucolic childhood on a Norfolk farm, Parfitt yearns to free himself from the hack’s daily shackles. He comes to believe a long walk will be an essential act of healing and understanding. Not just any old long walk, but a 1,000-mile traverse of the Caucasus, west to east, through a patchwork of small, turbulent republics on Russia’s southern fringe, from the Black Sea to the Caspian.