Who Killed Piet Barol?

A Book of the Year - The Times

A Book of the Year - Observer

A Book of the Year - Mail on Sunday

Avoiding the chaos of the First World War, Piet Barol leaves the bustle of civilization and heads into Africa's greatest forest. With a business to build and secrets to escape, his only weapons are courage and intuition. His African guides have their own reasons for taking him to their ancestral lands. What he finds there changes him forever, and unleashes a chain of events he can neither predict nor control...

This "gorgeous treat of a novel" (The Times, Book of the Month) is a funny, sexy, irreverent, and intensely moving portrait of what unites human beings when their sacred mysteries are blown apart.

“Utterly entrancing ...Richard Mason has created an epic narrative in which human failure and decency are opposing forces. Mason entwines the divided racial strands of South Africa in 1914, in a riveting tale seen through the eyes of both colonial whites and tribal black South Africans, as their paths converge in a search for survival and a better life. The novel is written by a master of prose who instinctively knows how to make the reader turn pages fast but also sets in motion trains of thought which demand slow, profound analysis as a seemingly playful lie spirals into an explosion of greed, lust and ruthless ambition . Set against the backdrop of ancient forests, this novel also explores the magic of nature and spirituality, and how man's noblest and most ignoble aims can sometimes co-exist in the same space.... I wanted to re-reread it immediately. Richard Mason is a distinctive voice in British fiction whose elegant prose has marked him out as one of the outstanding writers of his generation”

Utterly entrancing... Richard Mason has created an epic narrative where human failure and decency are opposing forces in this riveting tale...written by a master of prose who knows effortlessly how to make the reader turn pages fast ...as a seemingly playful lie spirals into an explosion of greed, lust and ruthless ambition - Mail on Sunday

A triumph of a novel...powerfully evocative and wholly absorbing. Human passions, the lust for power and status, and the inevitable fallibilities of man and beast are drawn with exquisite detail - CNN London

A stunning tour de force that will leave you gripped, moved and inspired. A richly atmospheric historical novel that says much about the way we live now, Who Killed Piet Barol? is a book to read again and again: a compelling story written in luminous prose with vividly-realised characters. This is a book by a serious writer at the height of his powers - Alex Preston, author of This Bleeding City

This is a gorgeous treat of a novel, full of contradictions and subtleties - THE TIMES

Hugely accomplished . . . One of the best books of the year - INDEPENDENT on THE HISTORY OF A PLEASURE SEEKER

Richard Mason was born in South Africa in 1978 to activist parents who settled in England when he was ten. Brought up and educated in Britain he wrote his first novel, THE DROWNING PEOPLE, before going to Oxford. In the intervening years, Richard finished his degree, then set up an educational charity in memory of his sister Kay. The Kay Mason Foundation provides scholarships to disadvantaged South African children, paying for them to attend some of the country's best schools.

A Book of the Year - The Times A Book of the Year - Observer A Book of the Year - Mail on Sunday Avoiding the chaos of the First World War, Piet Barol leaves the bustle of civilization and heads into Africa's greatest forest. With a business to build and secrets to escape, his only weapons are courage and intuition. His African guides have their own reasons for taking him to their ancestral lands. What he finds there changes him forever, and unleashes a chain of events he can neither predict nor control... This "gorgeous treat of a novel" ( The Times, Book of the Month ) is a funny, sexy, irreverent, and intensely moving portrait of what unites human beings when their sacred mysteries are blown apart.

This item is eligible for free returns within 30 days of delivery. See our returns policy for further details.