The Hangman's Game

Cleverly interweaving two storylines - a bloody slave revolt in 1823 and a military coup in the late 1990s - The Hangman's Game follows a pregnant writer's experiences in Nigeria during the murderous era of a 'military democracy', under a tyrant known only as Butcher Boy. The subplot, the woman's novel, is set in her native Guyana, with historical characters who reflect their counterparts in the real world - the woman, her minister husband and their daughter's strikingly beautiful nursemaid.