American Hanley Martin is troubled by his success. A wealthy aerospace industrialist, he was taught he should help others as a means of balancing the scales for his good fortune. He searches for ways to give back that will comfort his soul.

A trip to the Paris Air Show in 1999 changes the course of Martin's life when the head of a Catholic mission in southern Sudan tells him of the need for pilots to fly medical supplies and visiting doctors to and from their remote clinic and school in Mapuordit, which sits on the refugee trail from Darfur to Kenya.

Sister Marie Claire, a French nun working at the Mapuordit mission, helps the Sudanese people fleeing the war in Darfur. She's crafted a network of volunteers to save the children sold into slavery and forced to work in the country's more prosperous cities. She needs only one additional piece to complete her plan.

As Hanley Martin and his plane arrive at Mapuordit, she asks herself if the American may be the answer to her prayers.

Sometimes the Darkness is the first novel by the author Will Campbell. It tells the story of two people brought together by fate and the price they pay helping a horrific war's most vulnerable victims.