This is a powerful new novel by one of Senegal’s—and Africa’s--most revered contemporary novelists. He is an author admired by Toni Morrison and was her special guest at a recent event at the Louvre in Paris.

The novel opens as the fugitive former chief of the secret police Asante Kroma discovers the body of the deposed puppet president of a Western African nation. The book is partly his own confession before dying, and partly a murder investigation into who killed Kaveena, a six year-old girl, fifteen years earlier, and partly his questions over the circumstances of the former president’s own death. He has nothing left to lose in exposing the truth about the little girl. An entire nation, on the other hand, would have everything to gain, depending on who was finally accused of the murder…

“from this moment on, there was only one way out—to admit to crimes I didn’t commit, and this way to die in peace—in peace here meaning to die without first being tortured, as would otherwise be required. Those are the rules of the game, and I know them well…”.