This twisty and electrifying debut novel about a young woman who goes missing in Lagos, Nigeria, and her estranged auntie who will stop at nothing to find the truth is perfect for fans of My Sister, the Serial Killer and The Last Thing He Told Me.

Nicole Oruwari has the perfect life: a handsome husband, a palatial house in the heart of glittering Lagos, Nigeria, and a glamorous group of friends. She left gloomy London and a dark family past behind for sunny, moneyed Lagos, becoming part of the Nigerwives—a community of foreign women married to wealthy Nigerian men.

But when Nicole disappears without a trace after a boat trip, the cracks in her so-called perfect life start to show. As the investigation turns up nothing but dead ends, her Auntie Claudine decides to take matters into her own hands. Armed with only a cell phone and a plane ticket to Nigeria, she digs into her niece’s life and uncovers a hidden side filled with dark secrets, isolation, and even violence. But the more she discovers about her niece, the more Claudine’s own buried history threatens to come to light.

An inventively told and keenly observant thriller where nothing is as it seems, The Nigerwife is a razor-sharp look at the bonds of family, the echoing consequences of secrets, and whether we can ever truly outrun our past.

Review:

Sinister, simmering, and engrossing!

The Nigerwife is a sharp, slow-burning mystery that takes you into the life of Claudine as she heads to Lagos, Nigeria, to once and for all discover the fate of her missing, estranged niece, Nicole Oruwari, whose life in the past few years seems to have included a controlling extended family, a strained marriage, friends who liked to indulge in all the finer things of life, and a group of foreign women married to Nigerian men, known as the Nigerwives, who seem to be involved in much more than just charity work.

The writing is tight and intense. The characters are secretive, troubled, and multilayered. And the plot, told from alternating perspectives and using before and after timelines, is an ominous tale full of twists, turns, familial drama, secrets, lies, deception, infidelity, community, culture, societal expectations, relationship dynamics, reckless behaviour, swirling emotions, abuse, violence, vengeance, and murder.

Overall, The Nigerwife is an intricate, crafty, atmospheric read by Walters that captivated, satisfied, and highly entertained me and was a good reminder that things are never quite what they seem.

This book is available now.

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