Set in Nigeria, My Sister, The Serial Killer grabs you from the start with its intriguing premise of two sisters, Korede, the sensible, older sibling, constantly coming to the assistance of her younger and much more attractive sister, Ayoola who has a nasty habit of murdering her boyfriends. If that’s not bad enough, things become all the more complicated when Ayoola sets her sights on Tade, the man Korede has the hots for.
CONTAINS SPOILERS.

My Sister, The Serial Killer is an easy read, helped in no short measure by the author, Oyinkan Braithwaite’s dead pan sense of humour.  The novel is also fast-paced, written in staccato-style chapters, themselves like quick thrusts of a knife.

Not only does My Sister, The Serial Killer benefit from a great premise, Braithwaite is adept at teasing out just enough information about previous deaths, the sisters’ problematic childhood and the looming presence of their father to keep you wanting to read on. Then half way through, Braithwaite ups the ante even further when it turns out that Korede’s silent confidant may not be as silent as she thought.

In parts, despite the subject matter, the story is also rather relatable: the intrinsic power that attractive, young women have as opposed to the crushing invisibility of women deemed not to be. At times, Braithwaite points this out in a way which is both funny and heart-breaking such as Korede’s attempt to sashay like her sister (Tade thinks she might have hurt herself) or Korede’s similar doomed attempt to wear make up at work.

Above all, this is epitomised in the relationship between Korede, Tade and Ayoola. Tade doesn’t see Korede as a possible mate though she probably has many of the attributes he would say he’s looking for in a wife: instead he only has eyes for Ayoola. He is blinded to any of her faults which in itself is quite a feat given how selfish and self-centred Ayoola is throughout. As Korede points out: ‘All he (Tade) wants is a pretty face. That’s all they ever want.’

How little Tade sees Korede as a sexual being is evident in his inability to gauge that Korede has feelings for him. A state of affairs exacerbated every time he insists on asking Korede to intercede for him with Ayoola. Worse is to follow not only when he decides to show Korede the ring he wants to give Ayoola (seriously?) but also when Tade reinterprets Ayoola and Korede’s relationship so Ayoola is never at fault, discounting completely his previous friendship with Korede.

Not only is My Sister, The Serial Killer a great commentary on how superficial we are when judging people, it also hits home when it comes to the superficial and transient nature of social media. The disappearance of one of Ayoola’s victims is soon replaced by other trending topics while Ayoola’s main regret after killing him seems to be that she can no longer post anything on social media for appearances’ sake rather than the fact she murdered someone. In fact, in My Sister, The Serial Killer, nothing seems to count unless you can post about it afterwards. Even when Ayoola herself is stabbed, she has to get a photo of it up on Snapchat.

It’s no surprise then that Ayoola, who is the epitome of surface beauty, has made a financial killing from designing and modelling clothes on social media, tricking people into believing that if they just buy her clothes, then they too can look as good as she does.

Meanwhile the presence of their dead father haunts the novel. At one point Muhtar quotes Jim Morrison ‘The most loving parents and relatives commit murder with smiles on their faces. They force us to destroy the person we really are: a subtle kind of murder.’ The novel raises the question as to how much is the father responsible for putting the knife in Ayoola’s hand. Korede muses ‘More and more, she (Ayoola) reminds me of him. He could do a bad thing and behave like a model citizen right after. As though the bad thing had never happened.’

As we learn more about the father, we get to see what a nasty piece of work he was: from domestic violence to being prepared to palm off his 14-year old daughter  to a business acquaintance for the sake of a good deal. Little wonder if Ayoola has ‘men issues’.

Although to give Ayoola her due, at least she has agency over her life in stark contrast to her mother who has survived an unhappy marriage by taking to drugs. Meanwhile Korede seems to have chosen to shut herself off from everyone with the exception of Tade, a man emotionally closed to her and Muhtar, a man in a coma.

At the core of the novel is the relationship between the two sisters. Here I found the insights into Nigerian and specifically Yoruba culture fascinating, from the tribulations of having to deal with a corrupt police force and having to hide the fact you are an educated woman in order not to anger petty officials to the idea that an older sibling is always responsible for a younger one. ‘Ayoola is inconsiderate and selfish and reckless, but her welfare is and always has been my responsibility.’ Korede’s feeling of responsibility is such (or is it that she simply has more of a moral conscience?) that at one point Korede points out ‘I am more haunted by her actions than she is.’  In the end, however, Korede decides to tell Tade the truth: and it is one of the novel’s bittersweet ironies that Ayoola gets hurt during one of the few times she’s trying to protect her sister who by then had chosen Tade’s welfare over that of Ayoola’s.

I can’t recommend My Sister, The Serial Killer highly enough. It’s a great read, thought-provoking and original. A real page turner, and surely there’s no bigger compliment for a work of fiction than that.

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