End of the Road

END OF THE ROAD is a carefully crafted work of art with all the trappings of a well-told story. The characters are well defined so much so that by the time the reader gets to the end of the story, it would seem as if he or she had known them all their lives. The narrative style is apt and picturesque, getting the reader involved in the very engaging world of the story. The story has the Niger Delta region of Nigeria as its main setting with Warri and Madangho featuring prominently. There is, however, a temporary shift to Lagos when disillusioned PETER OFENE, who had just been released from detention after six years without trial, goes in search of his younger sister, EBISAN. From the first sentence of the PROLOGUE to the last word of the EPILOGUE, it is action, action and action with one thing leading almost naturally to the next, making it difficult for the reader to put down the book. Fully loaded with suspenseful and highly charged emotional moments, END OF THE ROAD is a vivid commentary on the interplay of the socio-economic, political and cultural forces in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. In the end, one cannot help but empathize with the key character, Peter Ofene who finds himself on the wrong end of the stick of the interplay of forces. Free flowing dialogue carefully woven into a pattern of believable characters and graphic scenic descriptions combine to give the work a truly aesthetic quality. END OF THE ROAD is indeed loaded and will be a reader's delight any day. Peter's parents separate when he was barely six years old and his mother leaves with his two younger sisters; Eunice and Ebisan. At the point of departure, his tearful mother makes him promise that he would be a good boy, go to school, and become a big man. That promise, made by six-year old Peter, became the guiding principle of his life. He grows up nursing the ambition of becoming an engineer and things went quite well for him academically until his final year in secondary school when