The once romantic notion of vowing to love someone ‘til death do you part’ at a wedding, takes on a more sinister tone in Busayo Matuluko’s page gripping and thrilling debut novel, ‘Til Death. A mystery thriller filled with attempted murders, dysfunctional families and turbulently true love. Budding private investigator Laura must wrestle with all this and more; when she travels to Nigeria for her favourite cousins wedding to her university sweetheart. Is love truly in the air or is someone out to sabotage the nuptials, that’s what Laura vows to find out before her the secret saboteur grows increasingly more violent.
Laura is an interestingly complex protagonist, torn between wanting to make her family proud and follow her own plans, and risk their disappointment. She hopes solving the mystery behind the threats to her cousin and her wedding celebrations could prove to her family that criminology and forensics are the right path for her future.
When who you are, and what you want to do in life, are conflicting with the dreams and expectations of those you love, it’s hard. Defying those people and risking their danger or disappointment is not easy, no matter how happy this someone or someone could make you, is a feeling Laura knows all too well.
What makes this mystery so intriguing, is that it doesn’t immediately begin with or end with an actual murder. There is a slow burning, plot twisting and sinisterly chilling tension that reaches the boiling point of poison, threats and attempted murder. Clues pointing towards multiple culprits, methods and other secrets and betrayals in the family leave you in shock and suspense, as you read more and more.
Matuluko leaves the readers with breadcrumbs of clues, hypotheticals and false narratives to try and throw us and Laura off the scent of who is out to stop her cousins wedding. It falls more into the mystery thriller genre than murder mystery. We get to see Laura attempt to stop the increasingly likely incidents of harm or murder taking place before it actually happens. It is in the last 100 pages, that Matuluko drops an unpredictable high staked twist that completely turns the wedding and Laura’s investigation on her head, after the sinister mastermind takes a potentially fatal turn at the eventual wedding. Readers are left clued to every page, and wanting to curate our own mystery solving boards like Laura and becomes PIs.
However, it’s not only a story of mystery, and familial and cultural expectations. Matuluko also uses amazingly displayed emotional intelligence, knowledge and understanding experience of sickle cell. She raises awareness of the reality of carrying the genes or living with sickle cell, and the pain and stigma behind it. Throughout her mystery debut, she educates readers on the genetics, symptoms and life of those with sickle cell, and those with a loved one living with sickle cell. It’s essential and heart tearing to see representation of genetic illnesses, mental health, the LGBTQA+ community and different cultures in fantasy and mystery genres.
If you’re looking for a new thriller, with a sinister stalker, wedding theme and amateur private investigators, you’re in for a heart racing ride into a doomed celebration of love, tied with heart, betrayal and grit in Matuluko’s five star debut, ‘Til Death.
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