Very funny, very dark, very pessimistic. Very Evylyn Waugh.
Written in 1932, in a fictitious newly independent African nation.
Full of corruption, violence, irony and daft colonials.
Waugh must have been a cranky old bastard.
I listened to an Audible edition on a trip last week. Very enjoyable.

I especially liked Waugh's novel Scoop. Living in Djibouti and frequently traveling to Ethiopia, it has stuck in my mind for years.

By the way, the writer William Boyd adapted the novel for a television movie in 1987. Very well done and very funny. DVDs still available.