From the acclaimed author of The Book of Night Women comes an engrossing and richly detailed epic that explores the tumultuous world of Jamaica over three decades.

In A Brief History of Seven Killings Marlon James combines brilliant storytelling with his unrivaled skills of characterization and meticulous eye for detail, forging a novel of dazzling ambition and scope. A fictional exploration of the attempted 1976 assassination of reggae superstar Bob Marley and its bloody aftermath, A Brief History of Seven Killings delves deep into a dangerous and unstable time in Jamaica’s history and beyond. James deftly chronicles the lives of unforgettable characters—gunmen, drug dealers, former girlfriends, CIA agents, even ghosts—over the course of three decades as they roam the streets of 1970s Kingston, dominate the crack houses of 1980s New York, and ultimately re-emerge in the radically altered Jamaica of the 1990s. Along the way, they learn that evil does indeed cast long shadows, that justice and retribution are inextricably linked, and that no one can truly escape their fate.

Gripping and inventive, shocking and irresistible, A Brief History of Seven Killings is a triumph.