A powerful, sparsely written novel that explores, in brutal detail and measured prose, the life of a man who killed for a living.

In the heat and the dust of the Indian south, the last hangman of the former princely state of Travancore commits his life to paper. In seven notebooks he remembers the people he has killed, calmly recalling the final struggles of the criminals he hung by the neck to die.

The Last Hangman is a remarkable and haunting novel, a meditation on death and what it means to end a life. This powerful and harrowing book explores a great moral question: what differentiates a killer in the cause of just from a murderer?

"Thought-provoking, harrowing and lingers long in the mind" - Mail on Sunday

"Inspired by the real hangman of Travancore, this fictionalised version has such depth of character, emotional authenticity and convincing technical detail that it could pass for a real autobiography" - Glasgow Herald

"A meditation on nothing less than the human condition itself... The Last Hangman is a work of intense passion unsapped by sentimentality, that inexorably forces change on the narrator, the fictional writer and the reader... A work of understated but awesome power." - Outlook

"A striking book... An unconventional treatment of an unconventional theme in a crisp, stimulating style... The expert weaving of fiction into historical fact creates an extraordinary tale." - The Statesman [India]

"Warrier has propelled himself into a very special niche in Indian fiction." - Financial Times [India]