Freight Dogs Giles Foden

W&N £18.99

Foden is best known for The Last King Of Scotland, his novel about Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. He returns with this coming-of-age thriller centred on the wars that beset West Africa during the 1990s. We follow Manu, a teenage boy who joins a band of gun-smugglers after fleeing the massacre of his family in Zaire. Styled as full-throttle adventure, the story nevertheless throws light on a grim period of recent history.