Esperance

What would you do if you had technology that no one else in the world had. Would you use it to better your life, make some money? Perhaps you would share it with others to develop society as a whole? Or maybe you would use it for revenge. A series of impossible murders is stumping Detective Ethan Krol in Adam Oyebanji’s Esperance as victims are drowned in sea water. The issue being that they are all found far in land dead in their own homes. 

The first victims already impacted Detective Krol even if their deaths had not been so bizarre. A father and young child found drowned with sea water in their own home. When another death occurs in the same way, a serial killer is on the loose, but a serial killer using a technique that seems impossible. Across the pond in Britain another investigator is on the case, but Abi Eniola is not your usual visitor from Nigeria if that is even where she is from. 

Crime and science fiction are genres that have always gone together well as the crime element gives structure to what can often be outlandish science fiction concepts. What makes Esperance so entertaining is Oyebanji’s commitment to the police procedural elements of the book. The story opens like any crime drama; a horrific case, a variation on a locked room mystery. Krol goes about solving the case like any other. What makes the story interesting is that Krol continues to do this, even as things become unfathomable. 

I loved Krol dogmatic nature, if not all elements of the Detective’s personality. He partners with another detective from across the US and they work on the case together. The thought of otherworldly technology never enters their minds and this feels truthful. In reality, most of us would stretch our reason as far as it could before admitting that something is alien. 

Whilst this story progresses, there is a parallel tale told in Britain of Abi and her friendship with a young woman called Hollie. Abi is a strange character, she speaks in odd dialect and seems to be both technologically savvy, whilst also being culturally clueless. A classic fish out of water story, but one in which the stakes are of the highest level. 

As both stories process, they are drawn to one another. The science fiction element of the book begins to take prominence, but there is always a case to solve. What are the motivations of the killer and who is Abi? These are mysteries that Oyebanji reveals in classic whodunnit pacing, leaving the reader guessing to the end. 

Esperance blends the crime genre and science fiction as well as any book I have read. There are elements of both that will appeal to fans of those genres, but this is a science fiction book at its core. There are moments of lightness, and although Abi is a brash character, her interactions with Britain and Hollie are amusing. This sits a little uncomfortably at times with the gruesome killings in the book, there are child victims. The tone is a little wobbly, but I understand the darkness as the motivation for the killings may feel misguided but is immensely powerful. 

Even with the upsetting deaths in Esperance, this is a book that I thoroughly enjoyed. It has a classy balance of crime and science fiction, humour and tension. The alien aspects of the book are treated with as much respect as the crime sections, so both are catered for. Like with any good crime book the reader is given a reason behind the crimes and Oyebanji does not shy away from making it a powerful one, and one based in the science fiction origins of the story.