Thursday 21 January 2010

Sirocco Express reviewed by Gap-Year.com

www.gap-year.com, the website for people taking a travelling break from education or their career, has been kind enough to review my first novel, Sirocco Express. Here is what the Gap-Year.com reviewer had to say:

"Here’s an unusual travel tale. A young Nigerian student sets out from Lagos to travel by truck across the desert towards Europe.

Initially naïve, Adebayo soon realises that his “escorts” Odion and Dele are not quite what they seemed.
 
He has paid a fortune for a ride in a truck operated as a business by people smugglers transporting people desperate to escape the poverty of their various homelands. Adebayo is plunged into a brutal, callous and selfish world as the truck makes its way from Lagos through Benin, Mali and on northwards till, two days away from Marrakech Adebayo is attacked and abandoned by Dele and left for dead.

He is rescued and cared for by an elderly couple then, walking through forest for a week and sleeping rough, finally he makes it to the Spanish enclave of Ceuto, Morocco, - and the high, double security fence designed to prevent would-be migrants into Europe from reaching their destination.

We won’t spoil the ending – you’ll have to read it for yourselves if you want to find out whether Adebayo reaches his goal.

This is a vivid account of the extreme ordeal many migrants undergo in their search for a better, more secure life."