Book Review: Lightseekers by Femi Kayode

I first heard about Lightseekers, by Femi Kayode, because Oyinkan Braithwaite, the author of My Sister The Serial Killer and Treasure said she was reading it.  (I heard her reading through the University of Glasgow, although I think she was in Nigeria. Recently, I’ve been listening to some author readings through UK colleges and libraries, because I teach morning classes in China, which is night for me in Boston, so I’m almost never free for any evening events in my own time zone. Time is weird and fake.)

The event that sets off Lightseekers is a triple murder of uni students at the hands of a mob, but it’s before the novel opens, and it’s mostly offstage. Instead, we see the protagonist’s reaction to the video of the murder of the Okriki Three. Just as Philip Taiwo is revolted and motivated to find the truth, so was I.

Taiwo is a psychologist, not a police officer or detective, and he comes at these crimes as an academic, with different access than the law or a family representative would have.  He’s already drawn in through complicated personal loyalties, and that’s sort of the heart of this book, all about complicated loyalties and personal connections.

Some of the college boys are in special groups, positively called fraternities, negatively called cults. There’s not really a religious aspect to these groups, but it’s somewhere between wild frat boy partying, a mutual aid society, and mob shakedowns of other students. At times, it’s a bit like the town vs gown stories of Oxbridge lore.  This idea, that a group is either working for mutual protection and advancement or it’s a hostile, violent gang, comes up again and again, not only for the college boys.

Taiwo’s investigations turn up wider social issues, too. Some of the history referenced is confusing if the only information you know about the Nigerian civil war comes from Half a Yellow Sun. It didn’t make the novel hard to follow, though, it just feels like what Phillip learns from the chief is a tiny fragment of what’s going on.  Also, I like to read international fiction because I like discovering different settings and viewpoints, so I don’t mind a little confusion as I learn more.

There’s a lot about social expectations and access to resources in this novel, but it’s also a solid detective story with a sympathetic protag in Philip Taiwo, and plenty of twists and surprising connections in his investigations.

  Lightseekers is by Femi Kayode, and will be published by Mulholland Books on March 2, 2021. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC. (And Oyinkan Brathwaite for the tip!)