I'm not sure what to make of this book. When I picked it up I had no idea what it was about (I didn't know the origins of the word 'thug' and assumed the word had the same meaning it commonly has now). So I did learn something from the book... I just found reading it a very strange experience. There's an inconsistency in the narrator; he appears remorseful in parts of the narrative, and completely merciless in others. One could argue that that's deliberate, and not a strange decision regarding character who is a murderer. I wonder if the inconsistency isn't caused by something else though - trying to write a character who is appealing and understandable, while also trying to write about something fraught with colonial fears - resulting in a character whose monstrous at times, because of the writers bias regarding the subject matter, and understandable at other times because of the writers instinct to create a relatable character... The whole thing feels very odd.