How to Kill a Good Man

How to Kill a Good Man
By Adam S. Hamilton
This poignant historical romance is set against the brutality of empires and the ruin of war, asking what the cost of love is.
Avi and Ruth meet as children on the cold cobbles of Lithuania, bound together by trauma after his mother dies in a violent pogrom. When he flees at sixteen, Ruth follows: across Europe, from Holland to the Cape Colony, and into the Transvaal Republic. There, they fashion a life together-a tannery, a corner store, and a fragile sense of belonging. Ruth is constant, loyal, and fierce. She is his past, his partner, his protector.

But love arrives later, in the shape of René-a radiant farm girl, gentle and rooted, with fire in her eyes. René awakens in Avi a longing he has never known. Torn between duty and desire, loyalty and longing, he is forced to choose.
When War erupts, allegiances splinter and the country is rent by violence. René throws herself into the struggle; through her, Avi is pulled into a conflict that will demand everything. Ruth, unable to accept loss, descends into jealousy and obsession. Her final act of love becomes a betrayal: a testimony that condemns Avi to the firing squad.
Is love a debt to be repaid, or the freedom to choose? Avi's life-shaped by pogrom, exile, empires, and war-answers in the cruellest possible way. This is the story of how to kill a good man: with power, with violence, and, most of all, with love.

Adam S. Hamilton writes books the way other people brew coffee: with ritual, a little stubbornness, and the occasional dramatic flourish. Born in sunny South Africa in the 1950s, Adam spent his childhood building go-carts from old prams, collecting bottles to trade for toffees, and staying out until the streetlights told him to come home. He remembers a world with one curly-corded phone, no telly until the '70s, and afternoons full of dens, matchbox cars and mischief - which, he insists, makes for excellent material later in life.
After seven years of serious study - Psychology, Hebrew, Greek and Theology - Adam answered his calling. He became a Minister of the Divine Word, though these days the divine word often arrives disguised as plot twists and romantic triangles. When sermons didn't provide quite enough mischief, he turned to fiction as a respectable form of escapism.
His debut novel, How to Kill a Good Man, is a poignant historical romance that strikes just the right balance of heartbreak and endearment, keeping readers turning pages long into the night. Adam likes to say he writes because history teaches uncomfortable lessons - and because sometimes you need to tidy up reality with a tidy bit of storytelling.
He now resides in rural England, where he spends his happiest hours on the farm with the girls (his honey bees), pondering why modern life feels so boisterous, and planning his escape into fiction.
Adam's life has spanned seven decades, two continents and, in his more poetic moments, two millennia of historical curiosity. He's fought the Cold War in daydreams, watched the world change its mind about a great many things, and remains stubbornly fond of family dinners, simple pleasures, and stories that refuse to let go.