A Brief History of Seven Killings -review

'You could describe it in colors, red and dead like old blood, brown like dirt, clay or shit, white like soapy water... ghetto is a smell...sometimes sweet: baby powder women wear on their chests..the rawness of recently slaughtered goat.. sour chemicals in the detergent'. (Words of Alex, an American music journalist at the time of Bob Marley's death).

Most of the multitude of narrators in Marlon James long book are Jamaican gangstas chatting and swearing in raasclatt; Bob Marley's death is a murky conspiracy; there's nonstop violence. It's all very believable and full of the choking atmosphere that must be Trenchtown. I've tried following one gang member; a woman who slept with Bob and a CIA man and Alex but I give up because I cannot for the life of me relate to it on a personal level.

I'll be honest with you. I can see why this won the Booker but my library copy will be going back to the main library at Dartmoor prison after I picked at it but didn't get into it. Maybe a prisoner there will understand it far better than myself.