Out March 19th 2026
On March 24, 2021, in the remote north of Mozambique, 500 ISIS militants attacked the small, paradise beach town of Palma – strategically unimportant but for vast offshore gas fields that had attracted $50 billion in foreign investment, including over £1 billion from the British government.
As the Islamists surged through town beheading civilians, a group of men, women and children –including 80 gas plant construction workers – barricaded themselves inside a hotel to await rescue. An oil and gas compound defended by attack helicopters and 1,000 soldiers was just minutes away. But help never came. Five years on, Alex Perry’s spellbinding, meticulous reconstruction unearths a hidden and unprecedented fiasco. Woven into his account is a search for the truth about how energy companies really make their vast profits.
His investigation takes him around the world, from Europe to the US and back to Africa again, as he tracks down the roughnecks, mercenaries, billionaires, and corporate spooks who can shed light on our most essential industry. As the revelations build and the lies multiply, Perry finds himself drawn into a legal drama, and an exploding political scandal.
Propulsive, prophetic, and arriving at a time when energy companies imperil the planet, Blood Will Flow delivers a morality tale for the global economy, and an inspiring quest for justice
“A magnificent, earth-shaking achievement. How many books truly change the world? This one will – indeed it already has. Perry’s relentless campaign to expose the secret truth about a murderous rampage in Mozambique – and the greed and poverty that fuelled it – has produced a blistering indictment of a global industry and its enduringly exploitative relationship with Africa. Perry’s book combines moral fury, forensic research, a vivid cast of characters, and the pace and drama of a thriller.”
Andrew Harding, BBC.
“Alex Perry has a well deserved reputation for producing top class reportage again and again. Blood Will Flow is a powerful, gripping and rigorously reported story of greed, violence and courage. It’s a must-read for anyone interested in Africa, the oil industry and violent extremism in recent years. His careful, harrowing and moving account of the lives and deaths of ordinary people exposes brilliantly the devastating consequences for communities across the continent.”
Jason Burke, The Guardian, author of Al-Qaeda and The Revolutionists.
“Blood Will Flow reads like a thriller, though this story is all too real. Journalists write the first draft of history and Alex Perry has done a vital job in ensuring that a major catastrophe is not forgotten. I am in awe.”
Sally Hayden, Irish Times, author of My Fourth Time, We Drowned.
“It is extremely rare for a journalist to uncover a scandal on the scale of the one Alex Perry uncovered in Mozambique, and he deserves widespread recognition for it. Blood Will Flow tells the extraordinary story of his investigation into the murderous affairs of a French corporate giant in an African war zone. This is a breathtaking read, and a story that urgently deserves a wide audience, because as the global scramble for gas, oil, gold and the so-called ‘rare earths’ accelerates, blood is flowing elsewhere, mostly out of sight, and, more often than not, it is happening in our names.”
Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, author of Che Guevara, and The Fall of Baghdad.
