Everyone thinks they know who did it, but the unanswered questions of why and how keeps a nosey blogger awake at night and requestioning who.
Review by Sonia Hepburn
A Perfect Suspect is a suspenseful murder mystery written by Ray Anyasi and published by Naphtali Books in 2022. The story is centred on a double murder that had occurred inside an apartment in uptown Lekki. The victims are the loud couple on the first floor, notorious for their regular fights especially in the mornings. The suspect is Anselm, the womanising bachelor who who shares the floor with them. The intrigue is that the bodies were found right inside Anselm's apartment and Anselm is on the run.
At the onset, no one was interested in solving for what truly happened inside that house that led to a husband and wife dying inside the apartment of their neighbour. The police Investigator in charge, a quite shifty character by name of Luke Ojo is focusing energy into arresting and prosecuting Anselm without bothering to find out other facts. Oma Amadi is a gossip blogger that introduces herself as an investigative journalist and takes offence at being called a gossip blogger. Her primary interest at first is to get first hand updates on the case from the police and share in her daily YouTube live videos. This case is giving her unbelievable traffic and she wants it to never stop.
In a short while Oma is drawn into the case to the point of being determined to find out the real truth about the murders and this is where the intrigues begin to unravel and plot thickens. Meanwhile, the brother of the victim, Dayo, is taking the law into his hands, searching for Anselm and swearing to make him pay. Anselm is in hiding in the one room apartment of a female work colleague whom he knows has had a long time crush on him. He manages to convince her of his innocence that she begins to help him plan how they can both skip town and start a new life elsewhere. With every flipping page, the noose tightens on them. Dayo gets closer, Luke gets less interested and Oma gets deeper into the rabbit hole of evidence.
The book bears the typical mark of an Anyasi writing, a free flowing prose punctuated by witty metaphors, sublime and sometimes dark humour that are seemingly unintentional. The characters are naturally playing out like they rehearsed for the story. Oma is brash, clueless at times and dead stubborn but it's hard not to love her.
A Perfect Suspect should be your next best read. It is available on Amazon and other book retailers online and in stores.