This is so good. A new favourite author for me. Science fiction meets action meets twists and turns. Truly great read. I am off to read the author’s other books. More please. Thank you to the author. Thank you to #netgalley and the publisher for an ARC.

Writing: 5/5 Characters: 4/5 Story: 4.5/5

Part (very weird) murder mystery, part speculative fiction and a wow ending — Esperance is an evolving surprise from start to finish.

Ethan Karol is the Chicago PD detective trying to solve the seemingly inexplicable murder of a father and son, found drowned in seawater next to a large (also dead) fish on the 20th floor of a fashionable apartment building. Meanwhile, Abidemi Eniola is roaming the streets of Bristol (England), dressed in 30s attire, speaking in a weird accent, and full of technological trickery that is beyond anything her accidental sidekick, Hollie, has even considered possible. And both Karol and Eniola appear to be trying to track down a very specific, long ago sea captain…

All the characters are fun to read and slowly learn about. Character insight comes through action and behavior more than any kind of introspection. Themes of racism, justice, and intergenerational trauma are core to the story, but (IMHO) serve primarily as background motivation for what is an intense, action filled set of pages. In truth, a little more action than I usually care for, but so well-written and full of surprising twists I didn’t even have time to complain (to myself).

I’ve read all four of Oyebanji’s books in the last four months and they have all been written (or at least published) in the last three years. This is promising! Two books are straight up mysteries (not cozies, but also not *too* thrilling for me) and two are SciFi Crime / Mystery. Author has exactly the kind of interesting bio that leads to creative plots and unusual characters. I’ll be keeping an eye out for all his new, apparently rapidly produced(!), works.

I was expecting a fast-paced cyberpunk techno-thriller with Africanfuturism flair from this book, and I did get that and in that this was an entertaining story. But I didn't connect with it as much as I had hoped; however I think this was just a case of it not being the right book for me.

This book tells the story of a hard-boiled police detective in Chicago, Ethan Krol, who's investigating the bizarre deaths of a family that was found drowned in seawater in their apartment building. Concurrently, a woman who speaks like a 1930s gangster movie who seems to have strange cybernetic implants is also on the trail of this mysterious killer, tagged along reverently by blindly trusting Hollie. Thus follows a breakneck, globe-spanning tale of twists and turns, racism and reparations as they struggle to understand the motive and means of the killer.

The detective I found to be a stereotype of a disgruntled, grumpy old white guy commonly found in noir films. The mystery was intriguing and the motives of the killer kept me reading to the end, but I kept wanting to DNF several times. It was just too heavy on the police procedural and investigation for my taste; I'm not a fan of gritty police procedurals.

This was a plot-driven thriller and I tend to prefer stories that focus more on character development. The characters in this just felt flat and underdeveloped. I didn't feel like I really got to know any of them as they got flung from one chase scene or action sequence to the next.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance review copy. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I powered through this book in a couple of days, trying to make it last longer, but it’s a difficult one to put down. Comparisons to Blake Crouch and Andy Weir caught my attention, and the author did not disappoint.

The story starts out as a murder mystery, drowned bodies, with seawater in their lungs, are found many miles from the sea. It soon becomes apparent that the murderer has the ability to disrupt technology and hack in to systems that make him or her invisible to the investigator. Detective Ethan Krol is determined to find out why and how these families are being murdered,

Meanwhile, in Bristol, England, Abedimi Eniola is also hunting down targets, claiming she needs to deliver heirlooms to their rightful owners.

She says she is Nigerian, but speaks like a 30’s gangster moll, and seems not quite human.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and highly recommend. Thanks to NetGalley for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was everything that I was looking for from a thriller novel, it had that concept that I was looking for and thought the use of racism and trauma worked with the story being told. It has really well written and thought Adam Oyebanji wrote a strong story that the characters felt like they belonged in this universe. I thought everything fit together and was glad I read this.