The protagonist is a fictional character named Nicholas Garrigan, a young Scottish doctor who goes to work in Uganda out of a sense of idealism and adventure, arriving on the day of the 1971 Ugandan coup d'état.
Drawing on his twenty years of living in Africa and his background as a journalist, Foden researched the events surrounding Amin's rise to power and downfall.
He interviewed many of those who watched and participated in Amin's eight-year reign and evokes the form of a memoir by inserting fictional newspaper articles and journal entries, along with actual events.
[1][2] As a British soldier who worked his way into Amin's favour, Astles was much more "proactive" than Garrigan, according to Foden, and he paid the price by spending six and a half years in a Ugandan jail after the fall of his protector.
[5] The book was adapted for the stage by Steve Waters in 2019, opening at the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield;[6] The Observer gave the play three stars out of five, describing it as "morally flawed".