One of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British history is the subject of The Fortune Men by Nadifa Mohamed (The Orchard of Lost Souls), a finalist for the 2021 Booker Prize. In 1952, Somali immigrant Mahmood Mattan was executed in Wales for the murder of a Jewish shopkeeper. The Mahmood in this riveting fictionalized account is "a quiet man, always appearing and disappearing silently," a trait that earns him the nickname the Ghost. Married to a white woman, Mahmood has worked as a sailor and still hangs around the Cardiff docks, but his recent employment has been confined to "foundry work and poky little boilers in prisons and hospitals." When Violet Volacki, a Jewish spinster and "modest Cardiff shopkeeper," is murdered at the door of her store, Mahmood is taken into custody.
What follows is a combination murder mystery, courtroom drama and trenchant commentary on racism. The Fortune Men is a sweeping indictment of British jurisprudence and the many forms prejudice can take: the detective determined to bring Violet's killer to justice even though Violet was "obviously not a Christian"; white people who hated it when a Black person "took one of their women" for his wife. Most poignant of all is the portrait of Mahmood, a proud Muslim who retains his hope and humanity even in the face of the most brutal of injustices. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer