My Sister, the Serial Killer

Short-listed Women's Prize for Fiction 2019

A blackly comic novel about lies, love, Lagos, and how blood is thicker — and more difficult to get out of the carpet — than water.

When Korede's dinner is interrupted one night by a distress call from her sister, Ayoola, she knows what's expected of her: bleach, rubber gloves, nerves of steel and a strong stomach. This'll be the third boyfriend Ayoola's dispatched in, quote, self-defence and the third mess that her lethal little sibling has left Korede to clear away. She should probably go to the police for the good of the menfolk of Nigeria, but she loves her sister and, as they say, family always comes first.

Until, that is, Ayoola starts dating the fit doctor where Korede works as a nurse. Korede's long been in love with him, and isn't prepared to see him wind up with a knife in his back: but to save one would mean sacrificing the other...

'It’s Lagos noir — pulpy, peppery and sinister ... The book is built to move, to hurtle forward — and it does so, dizzyingly. There’s a seditious pleasure in its momentum. At a time when there are such wholesome and dull claims on fiction — on its duty to ennoble or train us in empathy — there’s a relief in encountering a novel faithful to art’s first imperative: to catch and keep our attention... This scorpion-tailed little thriller leaves a response, and a sting, you will remember.' — New York Times.