The Impostor is about a world in which everyone is working towards the elimination of history. Every character has a mysterious past they would like to forget.

The Impostor is about a world in which everyone is working towards the elimination of history. Every character has a mysterious past they would like to forget.

Adam Napier is a down-and-out, a redundant office worker who moves to the country in the hope of writing poetry, his childhood dream.

Adam is offered the opportunity to stay in his brother's place in the country, an almost dilapidated house.

Greeted by a house full of old weeds, this is far from a country retreat. Until recently it was literally the end of the road, and it isn't long before the isolation takes its toll.

But his quiet life is quickly turned upside down by a chance meeting with Canning, a local landowner.

Canning takes Adam under his wing, claiming to be his long-lost school friend, but Adam has no memory of him. Canning invites Adam to his game park where shady business deals are happening.

Something fishy is going on, with a senior government figure a regular visitor to Gondwana, and Canning's beautiful black wife, Baby .

She has no apparent interest in Canning, but he claims frequently to love her passionately. Napier becomes a regular visitor to the estate, and Canning pushes Napier into Baby's company while he conducts his dealings.

Napier becomes obsessed with Baby and, rather predictably, they have an affair. But, through a series of clever plot twists, a simple message is: the past will come back to haunt you. What goes around comes around. South Africa as a nation may want to forget the past, but it's not that easy.

At the book's dramatic ending, Adam faces a crossroads and a clear choice: will he risk his own life to protect someone else, despite their past crimes?

Can a person ever have a right to a fresh start? Such questions are sensible and important.