419

419 by Will Ferguson
Laura's father is killed in an car accident which is later deemed to be a suicide.  Her father has responded to one of the e-mails offering a monetary reward for transferring funds out of impoverished Nigeria.  It seems he was pullled further and further into this scam and eventually used all his funds including mortgaging the house.


  Laura is a sad and lonely copy editor who wonders just how her Dad got pulled in and sets out to find out what exactly happened.  She is the perfect person to avenge his death as she can spot the nuances and spelling mistakes and other mistakes and find the exact person who conned her Dad.

A secondary story is about Amina who travels south in Nigeria from the Sahel to seek a better life for herself and her unborn child, another about Nnamdi who travels north out of the Niger Delta because the oil companies have destroyed his way of life and he wishes to do better and then there is Winston the perpetrator of the e-mails  and the schemes and people behind them.

I felt the story was very disjoint at times and at times bordered on boring.  I felt Amina was an extraneous ho-hum character maybe a little more character development would have helped.   We, in the western world do not realize the destruction  caused by these oil companies and their total lack of compassion and caring for the indigenous people.



First Line: "Would you die for your child?"

Rating:
(3.5/5)