Film-maker and journalist Sean Langan was used to working in some of the most dangerous places on earth. But when he went to the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in search of a meeting with a high-ranking Al-Qaida official, he had no idea of the ordeal that was to ensue and that he was sleepwalking into his worst nightmare. Arrested as a spy, he was imprisoned with his translator Sami with a family of Taliban supporters, and assumed the worst. However, by appealing to the strict Pashtun codes of hospitality, Sean slowly gained the trust of his jailers and, Scheherazade-like, used stories of life in the West to extend his welcome. And finally, he is accepted as a guest of the family: "This roof above our heads means more to us than gold" explains his captor, "and we will die to protect it. And you are a guest in our home, and that is a matter of tribal honour." But when one morning a Taliban death squad returns to pick up the hostages, the situation is no longer this simple. This extraordinary true story of friendship across a yawning cultural divide is as moving as The Bookseller of Kabul and as gripping as Three Cups of Tea .

As terrifying as it is enlightening, Sean Langan's story is testament to the universality of friendship and humanity against all the odds.