This review is written with thanks to Pigeonhole for the opportunity to read and review Light Seekers.

Blurb:

Winner of the 2019 UEA Crime Writing Prize, Lightseekers is the start of a major new crime series introducing investigative psychologist Dr Philip Taiwo.

When three young students are brutally murdered in a Nigerian university town, their killings – and their killers – are caught on social media. The world knows who murdered them; what no one knows is why.

As the legal trial begins, investigative psychologist Philip Taiwo is contacted by the father of one of the boys, desperate for some answers to his son’s murder. But Philip is an expert in crowd behaviour and violence, not a detective, and after travelling to the sleepy university town that bore witness to the killings, he soon feels dramatically out of his depth.

Will he finally be able to uncover the truth of what happened to the Okiri Three?

Review:

Femi Kayode is a debut author but you wouldn’t know this from the way he writes. I loved the way Light Seekers is plotted with small details gradually being revealed to the reader. This meant there were lots of twists and turns in the novel, even at the beginning, and I was engaged the whole way through. However, I’m not sure that the book lends itself to the stave format as it is quite complex in places and being forced to stop reading made it more difficult for me to get on top of what was happening.

As we already know who the perpetrators and victims are in Light Seekers, this novel is concerned with why the victims were targeted. This is a different perspective on the crime novel and I enjoyed delving deeper into the lives of the people involved.

As the investigation develops, the tension increases and Philip and his sidekick, Chika, find themselves in dangerous situations. I was acutely aware of this throughout the novel and I was on the edge of my seat, particularly towards the end. The investigation also gives the reader some insight into Nigerian history and culture and I found this aspect of the novel interesting.

Apparently, Light Seekers is the beginning of a series so I am eager to see where Kayode takes Philip next. There is definitely more to uncover about him and his family.

Light Seekers is available from Amazon.