Gaslight
Femi Kayode
Raven Books (Bloomsbury)
Review: Karen Watkins
This provocative, memorable mystery paints a powerful picture of today’s Nigeria.
Long-listed for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger 2024 award, Gaslight is the follow-up to Kayode’s 2021 debut, Lightseekers.
It follows the work of investigative psychologist Dr Philip Taiwo. Balancing his day job as a lecturer in psychology at Lagos State University College of Medicine, Taiwo follows up on the disappearance of Folasade (Sade) Dawodu, wife of Bishop Jeremiah Dawodu, a wealthy pastor of a Nigerian mega church who has been arrested as the main suspect in the case.
Taiwo is no fan of organised religion but agrees to take the case at the insistence of his sister. What makes the case unusual at first is that no body has been found. When one does turn up, the situation gets progressively deeper and darker as secrets are revealed that could bring the church to its knees.
Kayode uses a dual narrative to shed additional light on Sade Dawodu’s thoughts throughout the investigation.
In the background, Taiwo juggles family complications after his wife, Folake, and their three children move to Nigeria from America to escape racism.
The situation is not rosy as Taiwo strives to forge a new and lasting relationship with his children, who yearn for the American lifestyle that is vastly different from that in Nigeria.
Great themes emerge, some vastly different from a Western-set novel, but others show that the struggle is real, no matter where it takes place.
Gaslight cleverly casts a forensic eye over modern Nigeria, exposing the power struggles, inequality and corruption that affects every layer of society.
Kayode trained as a clinical psychologist before starting a career in advertising and spending several years working for the San Francisco Police Department’s internal affairs division. He lives in Windhoek with his family.
