It's a story of love in a time of darkness, of one woman's search for redemption, and of a young boy who will triumph above it all. įrom the internationally bestselling travel writer Will Ferguson, author of Happiness ™ and Spanish Fly, comes a novel both epic in its sweep and intimate in its portrayal of human suffering. What she finds there will change her life forever. When Laura's father gets caught up in one such swindle and pays with his life, she is forced to leave the comfort of North America to make a journey deep into the dangerous back streets and alleyways of the Lagos underworld to confront her father's killer. 'Ĥ19 takes readers behind the scene of the world's most insidious internet scam. And it all begins with a single email: 'Dear Sir, I am the son of an exiled Nigerian diplomat, and I need your help. Lives intersect, worlds collide, a family falls apart.

In the seething heat of Lagos City, a criminal cartel scours the internet looking for victims.

In the labyrinth of the Niger Delta, a young boy learns to survive by navigating through the gas flares and oil spills of a ruined landscape. His new novel, The Shoe on the Roof, will be. He has won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour a record-tying three times and has been nominated for both the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. His last work of fiction, 419, won the Scotiabank Giller Prize. On the other side of the world, a young woman walks out of a sandstorm in sub-Saharan Africa. Will Ferguson is an award-winning travel writer and novelist. Woven into Laura' s journey is a mysterious woman from the African Sahel with scars etched into her skin and a young man who finds himself caught up in a web of violence and deceit.Īnd running through it, a dying father' s final words: ' You, I love.A startlingly original tale of heartbreak and suspenseĪ car tumbles down a snowy ravine. Ferguson describes the code of the 419 players ‘we who traffic in falsehoods must put a premium on the truth’ but only touches on the broader societal consequences of absent trust in African societies. It is a dangerous game she' s playing, however, and the stakes are higher than she can ever imagine. When Laura Curtis, a lonely editor in a cold northern city, discovers that her father has died because of one such swindle, she sets out to track down- and corner- her father' s killer. And it all begins with a single email: ' Dear Sir, I am the daughter of a Nigerian diplomat, and I need your help'. Will Ferguson takes readers deep into the labyrinth of lies that is ' 419,' winner of the 2012 Scotiabank Giller Prize.Ī car tumbles through darkness down a snowy ravine.Ī woman without a name walks out of a dust storm in sub-Saharan Africa.Īnd in the seething heat of Lagos City, a criminal cartel scours the Internet, looking for victims.

419 by will ferguson