Nor should you think for a minute that Lagos has a corner on African noir. Akashic has Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Accra, and...
Noir comes to Africa.
Abani’s introduction promises that these 13 mostly new stories—Nnedi Okorafor’s “Showlogo” already appeared in an earlier version, as did the introduction—will reveal “much more truth at the heart of this tremendous city than any guidebook, TV show, film, or book you are likely to find.” That claim is doubly disingenuous, since (1) the whole premise of Akashic’s far-flung series, that noir is different from place to place, encourages genre tourism in exotic locales, and (2) this is, in fact, a book. So what does it reveal about Lagos? For better or worse, pretty much what you already suspected. A. Igoni Barrett’s “Just Ignore and Try to Endure” and editor Abani’s “Killer Ape” emphasize the perilously narrow frontier between humans and animals. Jude Dibia’s “What They Did That Night” and Adebola Rayo’s “What Are You Going to Do?” sketch bureaucratic corruption so deep that it’s an unblinking fact of life. The family units in Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s “The Swimming Pool,” Onyinye Ihezukwu’s “For Baby, for Three,” Uche Okonkwo’s “Eden,” and Wale Lawal’s “Joy” intensify rather than providing respite from the pervasive darkness. Chika Unigwe’s “Heaven’s Gate” and Leye Adenle’s “Uncle Sam” suggest that foreign visitors to Nigeria are advised to watch themselves and their surroundings very carefully indeed. E.C. Osondu’s “The Walking Stick” provides a reminder that some mysteries just aren’t meant to be solved. And Pemi Aguda’s “Choir Boy,” perhaps the most evocative of all these stories, presents a deeply shamed robbery victim’s portrait of an even more devastated victim. In nearly every case, noir’s ritualistic revelation of evil fits surprisingly well in a city of tragically diminished expectations.
Nor should you think for a minute that Lagos has a corner on African noir. Akashic has Addis Ababa, Nairobi, Accra, and Marrakech waiting in the wings.Pub Date: May 5, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-617755-23-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Akashic
Review Posted Online: March 4, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2018
A smoothly written contemporary caper paired with a murder mystery and a little meet-the-Jetsons futurism. No one does...
Written under her real name and her pseudonym, two books in one from megaselling Roberts/Robb.
Book one: Laine Tavish, gorgeous redhead and owner of a small-town antique store, isn’t about to tell the cops that she knew the old man who was hit by a car right outside her shop. Just before he took his dying breath, she recognized Willy Young, partner in crime to Big Jack O’Hara, her father. Their biggest heist: millions of dollars in hot diamonds. Her father went to prison, but not Willy, whose last words were “left it for you.” What did he leave—and where? Enter Max Gannon, insurance investigator and all-around stud, with thick, wavy, run-your-fingers-through-it hair, tawny eyes that remind Laine of a tiger, and a delicious Georgia drawl. He beds Laine pronto, and they solve the case. But some of the diamonds are still missing. . . . Book two: it’s 50 years later, and New York traffic is slower than ever: just try getting a helicab on a rainy day. But Samantha Gannon, author of a bestseller called Hot Rocks based on her grandparents’ experiences in the long-ago case, eventually makes it home from the airport to find her house-sitter Andrea dead, throat cut. Another investigation begins, spearheaded by Eve Dallas, a tough-talking but very appealing New York cop married to Roarke, a rich, eccentric genius who just barely manages to stay on the right side of the law. Is the murderer after the rest of the diamonds? And is he or she related to the master thief who betrayed Samantha’s great-grandfather? There are more burning questions, and Eve wants answers—but, first, get Central on the telelink and program the Autochef for pastrami on rye.
A smoothly written contemporary caper paired with a murder mystery and a little meet-the-Jetsons futurism. No one does Suspense Lite better than Nora.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-399-15106-0
Page Count: 448
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2003
Despite a provocative and topical premise, and a strong opening, Picoult fails this time, her seventh, to rise above...
An uneven reworking of tabloid headlines: a young woman is charged with infanticide, and a hard-boiled attorney agrees to defend her. With one crucial distinction: the defendant is Amish.
In the Amish community of Paradise, Pennsylvania, 18-year-old Katie Fisher, unwed, is the chief suspect in the death by asphyxiation of a newborn found in the Fisher family’s barn. A medical exam reveals that Katie has just given birth, but she insists she has never been pregnant. Enter Ellie Hathaway, a 39-year-old (and single) Philadelphia defense attorney visiting her aunt Leda. Leda, also Amish, prevails upon an initially reluctant Ellie to defend Katie. Ellie moves in with the Fishers to prepare Katie’s defense, a device that allows Picoult (Keeping Faith, 1999, etc.) to juxtapose the devout Amish (or Plain Folk) and their spartan way of life with city-slicker Ellie. But as Ellie befriends Katie, unsettling inconsistencies in the latter’s story emerge. As in Rashomon, the truth proves elusive, shifting, and often unwelcome. Is Katie suffering from a genuine psychosis, repressing events too traumatic to remember? Or was she simply trying to conceal an affair and pregnancy she knew would have led to her being shunned by her own people? The drama echoes with conflicts in Ellie’s own life: her loudly ticking biological clock, the end of a tepid relationship with another attorney, and the resumption of a love affair with Coop, her college sweetheart-turned-psychologist (and eventual expert witness on Katie’s behalf). All, of course, will be tidily resolved by trial’s end.
Despite a provocative and topical premise, and a strong opening, Picoult fails this time, her seventh, to rise above paint-by-numbers formula. (Author tour)Pub Date: May 9, 2000
ISBN: 0-671-77612-6
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Pocket
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2000
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