My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

This book was long listed for the 2019 Booker Prize, which makes it a must-read for me.

The story is set in Lagos, Nigeria. It is a story of a family of 2 girls from an upper class family. Koreda, the narrator of the story, is a nurse in a famous hospital. Her younger sister, Ayoola, is beautiful beyond description but beneath the beauty lies a dark character.

The story commences with the murder of Ayoola's 3rd boyfriend and Koreda was called up to clean up the aftermath of the deed.

The reader does not know exactly the childhood horrors experienced by the angel murderess and her sister except that behind the facade of a gracious family lived an abusive father until he died.

The insinuation is that the murders of Ayoola's boyfriends is a psychological retaliation to her past abuses by powerful and lustful men.

Sisterly relationship made the two partners in crime until the affable Dr Tade becomes attracted to his Ayoola, his head nurse our narrator, who also carries a torch for him.

Koreda had no outlet to vent her misgivings except to a comatose patient, Muther, who lies in bed unattended by family. He became a living confessional booth until he wakes up from his coma.

There are a lot of unaccounted gaps in the story telling. The coma patient who came back to life made major life changes but did not thwart or change the course of the story as one who expect.

The story is written with a smattering of Nigerian working class lingo to depict the underdog that thankfully is few in between. It is an interesting insight to Nigerian society involving the rich and entitled but otherwise the background of Nigeria's Lagos did not come out strongly as a canvas for the story.