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Fortune always left whatever room I walked into, which is why I don't leave my place much these days...
Veteran and private eye Boubacar doesn't need much―least of all trouble―but trouble always seems to find him. Work has dried up, and he'd rather be left alone to deal with his bills as the Harmattan rolls in to coat the city in dust, but Bouba is a down on his luck deux fois, suspended between two cultures and two worlds.
When a bleeding woman stumbles onto his doorway, only to vanish just as quickly, Bouba reluctantly finds himself enmeshed in the secrets of a city boiling on the brink of violence. The French occupiers are keen to keep the peace at any cost, and the indigenous dugulen have long been shattered into restless factions vying for a chance to reclaim their lost heritage and abilities. As each hardwon clue reveals horrifying new truths, Bouba may have to carve out parts of himself he's long kept hidden, and decide what he's willing to offer next.
From the visionary author of Riot Baby and Goliath, Harmattan Season is a gripping fantasy noir in the tradition of Chandler, Hammond, and Christie that will have you by the throat―both dryly funny and unforgettably evocative.
"Blending elements of classic noir fiction (including a Chandleresque narrative voice) and fantastic acts of terroristic martyrdom, Onyebuchi crafts an equally heady and page-turning narrative. This is an unforgettable portrait of a place and a person trapped between two worlds and two cultures." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The novel's setting is reminiscent of the historical fantasy of P. Djèlí Clark, whose work, along with that of Nnedi Okorafor and Moses Ose Utomi, would be an excellent read-alike for Onyebuchi's highly recommended hardboiled fantasy mystery." —Library Journal (starred review)
"This twisty mystery is perfect for fans of noir authors like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler who want a new perspective along the lines of P. Djeli Clark and S. A. Chakraborty." —Booklist
This information about Harmattan Season was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Tochi Onyebuchi is the author of Goliath, a Locus Award and Dragon Award finalist, the young adult novel Beasts Made of Night, which won the Ilube Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novel by an African, its sequel, Crown of Thunder, and War Girls. His novella Riot Baby, a finalist for the Hugo, the Nebula, the Locus, the Ignyte, and the NAACP Image Awards, won the New England Book Award for Fiction and an ALA Alex Award. He holds a B.A. from Yale, a MFA in screenwriting from the Tisch School of the Arts, a Master's degree in droit économique from Sciences Po, and a JD from Columbia Law School.
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