419

Will Ferguson's 419 is the winner of the 2012 Giller Prize.

From the book cover:
A car tumbles through darkness down a snowy ravine.

A woman without a name walks out of a dust storm in sub-Saharan Africa.

And in the seething heat of Lagos City, a criminal cartel scours the Internet looking for victims.

Lives intersect. Worlds collide. And it all begins with a single email: "Dear Sir, I am the daughter of a Nigerian diplomat, and I need your help..."

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. It is a dangerous game she is playing, however, and the stakes are higher than she can ever imagine.

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.

And running through it, a dying father's final words. "You, I love."

My Review:

I totally see why this novel won the Giller Prize. It deals with a topic that we hear about more and more here in North America - those pesky phishing scams that often target senior citizens. The title '419' comes from the section of the Nigerian criminal code that deals with Internet scams and the obtaining of money by deceit or other illegal means.

Will Ferguson's writing style is easy. 419 isn't one of those books you can't put down. It's the type of book that you're happy to pace yourself with and get to the end when time allows. A few online critics have bashed 419 for having superficial and meaningless one-liners. They compare 419 to Will Ferguson's other  novels,  the memoirs Beyond Belfast, Hitching Rides with Buddha and Canadian Pie about his travels in Ireland, Japan and from Yukon to PEI, respectively, and his satirical novels Happiness™ and Spanish Fly. I've never read any of his works before so I didn't have anything to compare 419, and thus found it to be a satisfying read.

My only real complaint would have to be the ending. I didn't get the answers I was seeking, the ones that compelled me to flip through this 393-page novel. The reader is given back stories for all but one of the main characters in the novel. Oddly enough, the characters current circumstances drives much of the plot, yet the reader does not get even a glimpse of how she came to be in her current situation.

At the end of the day, 419 is still a damn good book.

4/5