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Purple Hibiscus

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

9.0 (1 Ratings) Rate It

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The limits of fifteen-year-old Kambili's world are defined by the high walls of her family estate...

Open City

Teju Cole

(0 Ratings) Rate It

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es A Nigerian man wanders the streets of New York; partly an escape from the strictures of his work,...

ClareR (5726 KP) rated Lightseekers in Books

Feb 23, 2021

Lightseekers

Femi Kayode | 2021 | Crime, Fiction & Poetry, Mystery, Thriller

8.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

Lightseekers is a fantastic thriller set in Nigeria. I love books set in other countries (i.e. set outside the UK), in the hope that I’ll learn something about the people and the culture - and I think that was exactly the case for both me and the main character, Philip Taiwo in this book. He has lived in the US for long enough to forget how things are done in his home country of Nigeria, and for long enough to be considered an outsider. Luckily for Philip, he has a competent helper in Chika - a man employed as his driver who is clearly much more than just that. There’s a lot of mystery surrounding Chika’s capabilities, and he certainly has a way with people that Philip needs to talk to. Sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes not so much.
This isn’t a straightforward, easy investigation. There’s corruption at every turn, and the mob mentality and fear of being caught on the wrong side of that, radiates off the page. It was pretty difficult at times to work out who was on the side of ‘good’ and who wasn’t - the lines were so blurred. It was pretty obvious that social media in this case contributed negatively to what had happened, and how easily its users were manipulated - I’ve been seeing this a lot in books recently, and as a user of Social Media, I can see where these authors are coming from!
I really enjoyed reading this on The Pigeonhole, and I think Femi Kayode is going to be an author to look out for if this book is anything to go by. Thanks Pigeonhole for serialising this, and Femi for joining in the chat in the margins!