This is an eye-opening and compelling book of life in Ghana told through the eyes of a young boy who finds himself trapped in a living nightmare. Thought-provoking and sinister in equal measure it will take you into the poverty driven underworld of gangland Ghana and lead you to a taut and thrilling climax.
The holidays lie heavy on young Leonard Boameh. His schoolfriends live far away from his home town of Accra, his nana is no fun, and his dad - who's great - is away working most of the time. So Leonard decides to run away for a few hours, and when Nana isn't looking he takes the tro-tro bus to Elmina, a historic European fort built to imprison West African slaves shipped off to America. There are lots of rough kids begging there, and before Leonard knows what's happening, he is kidnapped by the meanest gang of all, who plan to use his angel-face to fleece the tourists. Leonard is now a slave, trying to escape from a living nightmare. Bernard Ashley's thought-provoking Ghanaian story, set in the sinister, poverty-driven underworld of gangland, leads to a taut, thrilling climax.This title is also available as an ebook, in either Kindle, ePub or Adobe ebook editions
Bernard Ashley lives in Charlton, south east London, only a street or so from where he was born. He was educated at the Roan School, Blackheath and Sir Joseph Williamson's Mathematical School, Rochester. After National Service in the RAF Bernard trained to teach at Trent Park College of Education, specializing in Drama. He followed this with an Advanced Diploma at the Cambridge Institute and has recently been awarded honorary Doctorates in Education by the University of Greenwich and in letters by the University of Leicester. During his career as a teacher he worked in Kent, Hertfordshire, Newham and Greenwich, with thirty years of headships in the last three. His debut novel The Trouble with Donovan Croft won the Other Award, the alternative to the Carnegie Medal, and several of his other titles have been highly commended by the Carnegie Medal panel.
