Tab Article

Ratings: ★★★★☆ (4.1/5)
Genre: Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Crime Fiction, Political Thriller

Book Review:
A Brief History of Seven Killings is a dazzling, ambitious, and mesmerizing novel from Marlon James, longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2015. It is a fictional exploration of the real-life 1976 assassination attempt on reggae superstar Bob Marley. Seven gunmen stormed Marley's house in Jamaica, machine guns blazing. Marley survived, but the gunmen were never caught. Spanning three decades and crossing continents – from the slums of Kingston to the streets of New York City in the 1990s – this novel chronicles the lives of unforgettable characters: slum kids, one-night stands, drug lords, girlfriends, gunmen, journalists, CIA agents, and even ghosts. Told through multiple voices, the story is raw, violent, poetic, and utterly gripping. It's like a Tarantino remake of The Harder They Come with a soundtrack by Bob Marley and a script by Oliver Stone and William Faulkner. Epic in every sense of the word. A must-read for fans of ambitious, character-driven literary fiction.