RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewMohamed balances colonial history and violence with the evocative interior lives of Mahmood and Violet Volacki ... Mohamed brilliantly depicts the complexities of community within the Black diaspora ... After Mahmood’s arrest, the novel shifts its focus to the British criminal justice system, providing a visceral account of the protagonist’s carceral experience. We feel his eye twitching in response to the camera that takes his mug shot, as well as all the physical and psychic tolls of living in a cell as the clock ticks toward his execution, as his appeals for retrial are denied ... Mohamed manages such tender detail even while zooming out on the British prison and court systems more broadly.
