A Barbican First debut

The Devil's Horsewhip is a startlingly fine novel-in-stories about Caribbean folklore, superstitions and legends surrounding death by a writer whose prose judges at Wasafiri have described as vivid and with a spectacular voice.

At the pinnacle of the pandemic—a year already punctuated with daily funeral processions—a Jamaican expat gets an envelope covered in red writing from his doctor. It sends him into a mad tumble between bad omen days and fever dream nights until all that he thinks about is that bitter day in the Jamaican White River Valley, where he and other teenagers escaped a double-cutlass-wielding madman out for blood. But death is not one to give up easily. The years are not long enough, neither is fleeing across continents too far for death's spite and all the worse duppies not to come knocking.

Who will cheat death a second time?

A Christian woman who decides to sleep with an obeah man's monkey. The man with the answer to whether Haitian voodoo is stronger than obeah. A woman who knows how to mourn a dead baby. Or the ones who know how to trap a rolling calf, outrun a three-foot horse, and battle a Chinese duppy and win.

If you're superstitious or wary of those who are, come read these sticky tales spun in barbwire.