‘Gaslight’ review — Well-rounded main character and clever plot make for a complex crime novel

Gaslight
Femi Kayode
Raven Books

Femi Kayode is a Nigerian who trained as a clinical psychologist before turning to writing. He now lives in Namibia, and this is his second novel after the acclaimed Lightseekers. Both feature investigative psychologist Philip Taiwo. Gaslight can be read as a stand-alone offering, though there are references to events in the earlier book.

Philip and his family are back in his home country of Nigeria after many years in the US, and there are degrees of culture shock for all of them. But things seem to be going smoothly until Philip’s sister gets him involved when the wife of the bishop of the charismatic church she attends goes missing, and the bishop, to the horror of his faithful flock, is publicly charged with her murder. Despite his reservations about the church — Philip says he wavers between being a lapsed Christian and an agnostic — he checks the apparent crime scene and forces the police to agree that it is all a set-up. But by whom?

Then the Bishop’s wife is found dead — and things begin to get very murky and complicated, and ultimately dangerous, for Philip and his family. The more he discovers about the financial and moral shenanigans at the church, the more dangerous his situation becomes. Another body appears, an obvious warning to Philip not to meddle. Nothing and nobody are quite what they seem on the surface, and it gets very hard to know who to trust, but Philip is determined to get to the bottom of the case.

To add to his problems, his daughter is having a hard time at school and wants to go back “home” to America. The digressions into issues of racism in America and Nigeria are cleverly handled and add another and appealing dimension to the novel.

Philip is a likable and believable narrator, a man of principle, and one with very human doubts and concerns. The reader has information Philip doesn’t have. There are short sections throughout the book apparently in the voice of the bishop’s missing and ultimately dead wife. It all adds up to a complex and satisfying crime novel, with an attractive and rounded main character and a clever plot to unravel.