"Uncle Sam," by Leye Adenle, in Lagos Noir, edited by Chris Abani, Akashic Press, 2018.
This is Adenle's second appearance in this column.
Many is the time I have kicked myself for not seeing the ending of a story coming. This time I should have seen the subject coming.
This is a book of crime stories about Nigeria. Of course
there had to be a story about the 419 scheme. You may know that better
as the Nigerian Prince scam. "I am the widow of the head of an oil
company and I need the help of some honest foreign stranger to illegally
smuggle zillions of bucks out of Nigeria..." 419 refers to the section
of the Nigerian criminal code which (attempts to) ban such things.
Which
brings us to Dougal, newly arrived at the airport in Lagos, and
terrified that he may have gotten himself into a you-know-what.
Apparently an uncle he didn't know he had has died, leaving him a ton of
money. He has to come to Lagos in person to collect it. Someone who
claims to represent his uncle's law firm has even provided the money for
him to fly there. What could possibly go wrong?
There are bad guys in Lagos, but there are good guys too. Can Dougal tell them apart?
No comments:
Post a Comment