The road to the salt sea, by Samuel Kolawole

 

I found this a tough book to read because nothing ever goes right for the protagonist, Able God, or anyone else in the book, for that matter. But it's an important book because it shows us not only the root of the migrant problem in Africa but also the horrible plight of many of those migrants who are sold a dream to go to Europe but who often end up facing starvation, extortion, and slavery. Able God works in a high class hotel but can only afford a small, one-room apartment. He's depressed about his situation and is in the habit of using street drugs and alcohol to stave off his depression. When someone named Ben Ten comes along to recruit people to migrate to Italy, Able is initially skeptical of Ben Ten's promises. But when a situation gets out of control at work and Able kills a customer in self defense, Able flees and signs up with Ben Ten to migrate to Italy. This book details the migration north through Niger, across the Sahara, and into Libya where the migrants are forced into labor camps to supposedly pay off their expenses. Along the way, fellow migrants are left behind in the desert or shot when they try to flee. Able himself is tortured when he refuses to give his captors his parents' phone number (used to extort payment from them), but he eventually relents and gives it up. When Able escapes and finally makes his way to the sea where he can cross in a rickety rubber dinghy, the crossing is nearly as treacherous as crossing the Sahara was. And when he's picked up by the Italian Coast Guard, he's taken to a refugee camp in Malta rather than to Italy. While there, he manages to earn some cash from a man playing speed chess on the beach, offering an optimistic glance at what might help sustain him as he (hopefully) assimilates into European culture. As I said, this is an important book for its portrayal of the plight of the migrant. But I kept thinking about how Able might have done better if he'd stayed away from drugs and alcohol and put his self-help books and reading to better use. This was a straightforward narrative and is very accessible, although I found a number of places where it could have used some better editing (there are what in film I would call continuity errors, for example). But I would recommend the book to anyone who wants to understand the migrant issue better.

Dumb witness, by Agatha Christie

 

In this Hercule Poirot mystery from 1937, wealthy spinster Emily Arundell writes to Poirot with concerns that someone in her family is trying to kill her, but he doesn't get the letter until two months later. When investigating, he quickly comes to the conclusion that an attempt was made on her life that resulted in a fall down a staircase, although she dies a few weeks later of what appears to be natural causes. Lead suspects are her nieces and nephews, her companion, and her two servants. As Poirot investigates, he determines that when the first attempt to murder Emily failed, she was then murdered by poison. He is aided by his friend Captain Hastings who has recently returned from Argentina. 

While some of Christie's earlier books had pets in them, this is the first book in which Christie gives the dog an inner life and dialog. I didn't care for that very much, so hopefully she didn't continue that conceit. Christie also used a racist figure of speech ("N***** in the woodpile"), putting it into Poirot's mouth and naming an entire chapter after it. I had never heard it before and had to look it up on Wikipedia which explained the meaning and history of its use, which declined in the 20th century. I've noted the use of antisemitic language in earlier books along with other slurs, such as Dago or "an Apache attack,", but this appears to be her first slur against Blacks.