The Last King of ScotlandThe Last King of Scotland

Nicholas Garrigan has fled his native Scotland, and his parents' expectations, to take a position as a doctor in a remote rural outpost of Central Africa. Shortly after his arrival in Uganda, he is called to the scene of a bizarre car accident: Idi Amin, manically driving his red Maserati down the dirt tracks of Garrigan's small village, has run over a cow. Garrigan binds Amin's sprained wrist and puts the incident behind him, until a letter arrives from the Minister of Health informing him that Amin - in his obsession with all things Scottish - has appointed Garrigan his personal physician. Garrigan is instructed to settle into State House, on the grounds of Amin's residence, immediately.
Later, Garrigan will reflect that had he known what awaited him, had he foreseen the terrifying concatenation of events this decision would set in motion, he would have boarded the first plane back to Scotland. He will wonder why it never occurred to him to simply say no.
So begins Nick Garrigan's journey into a Conradian heart of darkness, as his own moral center battles weakly against, and then succumbs to, the dark and irresistible seductions of Idi Amin Dada, whose cruelty and cunning are masked by brilliant rhetoric, hilarious wit, and electrifying personal magnetism. When at last Nick awakens to the horrors of Amin's regime, he must awaken also to his own complicity in it - he cared for Amin, as a doctor and as a friend - and to the knowledge that he is both a traitor to his own country and a prisoner in his new one.
The reluctant personal physician to Idi Amin, Scottish civil servant Nicholas Garrigan is drawn despite himself to the charismatic but brutal dictator, until a plot against Amin awakens him to the unspeakable horror and cruelty of the regime. A first novel. 15,000 first printing. First serial, The Paris Review.
The reluctant personal physician to Idi Amin, Scottish civil servant Nicholas Garrigan, is drawn despite himself to the charismatic but brutal dictator, until a plot against Amin awakens him to the unspeakable horror and cruelty of the regime