My thanks to Little, Brown Book Group - Constable for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘Making Wolf’ by Tade Thompson in exchange for an honest review. It was Thompson’s first novel and originally published in the USA in 2015 and has now found a new home with Constable. Since 2015 Thompson has established himself as a author of cutting edge science fiction with The Wormwood Trilogy set in Nigeria. ‘Making Wolf’ is a blend of crime and political thriller. It is set in Alcacia, a tiny fictional country squeezed in between Nigeria and Cameroon. As the novel’s narrator states: “Former British colony, former French protectorate, former Portuguese trading post, now in its fourth decade of independence, the country of my genetic contributors. I’m British these days, but I still consider myself loyal to Alcacia.” Weston Kogi is a security guard in a London supermarket. When his Aunt Blossom dies, he returns to his West African home country of Alcacia that he had left fifteen years previously to attend her funeral. While there he meets with his estranged family and his ex-girlfriend Nana. More worryingly, he encounters Churchill "Church" Okita, who had bullied him mercilessly when they attended boarding school. Church still makes him nervous. Still, Weston is enjoying himself and brags to Church that he is a homicide detective with the Metropolitan Police. It seems a harmless deception but one that backfires spectacularly when he is kidnapped twice and forced by two separate rebel factions to investigate the murder of a local hero, Papa Busi. He has no choice but to look into the case and it quickly becomes apparent that there has been a cover-up. Weston is plunged into a dark, violent underworld in which his life is in constant jeopardy. In addition, the outcome of the investigation might well tip the country, already in the grip of a volatile political situation, into civil war. While, this is an example of gritty African noir, it also has a vein of dark humour running through it, mainly in the form of Weston’s reflections and asides as he frantically attempts to keep his head above water. This wise-cracking draws on the tropes associated with the hard-boiled detective of classic crime noir. Despite some disturbing and quite gruesome violence, I found this very entertaining and feel that it could easily have been the start of a series of crime thrillers. Although science fiction has become the focus of Thompson’s writing, perhaps with ‘Making Wolf’ reaching a new audience Thompson will pick up the thread and pen more adventures for Weston. This was my first experience of Thompson’s work even though I have been intending to read The Wormwood Trilogy. I must rectify that soon as this was excellent. 4.5 stars rounded up to 5.

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance copy of Making Wolf to consider for review. If you have read Thompson's Rosewater trilogy you'll know that he should be seriously rated as a fiction writer but you may expect to only find him writing SFF. However with Making Wolf he's brought some of the same sensibility to the crime/ thriller genre - albeit a great deal more gore! Making Wolf is a homeconing for Weston Kogi, a young man who left - fled - the West African state of Alcacia some fifteen years before amidst civil war. He's come back for his aunt's funeral (his aunt, who helped him get away in the first place) and doesn't intend to stay long, indeed the first part of book has some amusing scenes where it's clear that Kogi's time in London (he works as a store detective) has left him rather adrift in Alcacia. He can't bear the heat and humidity and has a a morbid fear of mosquitos. However, those are the least of his problems. Once it comes known that he's a "detective" (he may have been vague about what sort) he becomes a prize for two warring rebel factions, each of whom wish him to prove that the other was responsible for the death of the revered Papa Busi, the only political figure who might have been able to unite the nation. Soon Kogi's plunged into a nightmare of abductions, executions, and what begins as a performative investigation meant simply to keep him alive and buy some time while he works out a way to escape. Which is where the comedy stops, as Thompson transitions into a very smart thriller, one that allows Kogi to explore the ins and outs of Alcacian society, sketching out both its postcolonial woes and the necessities of life there. This is done through Kogi fairly quickly relearning (in order to survive) how not to appear like a gullible foreign visitor (though he has a few near misses to begin with) while not so quickly discovering exactly what's going on around him (which is what poses the greater threat). The latter element is a satisfying complex web of motivations and double crosses - Making Wolf may be a relatively short book but there's a great deal going on here and no time at all for the story to sag. It's good so see that Thompson leaves the ending sufficiently open that we can imagine follow-ups in which Weston Kogi turns his attention to new mysteries. I would mention that Making Wolf contains some pretty brutal scenes - in particular a couple of gruesome deaths. They're not gratuitous (the book takes place amidst a low intensity civil war) but aren't for the squeamish.

Weston Kogi fled Alcacia in West Africa 15 years ago. His Aunt Blossom helped him get on the last flight out after the country fell into rioting and civil disorder following the mysterious death of the leaders of the main political parties in a bombing widely considered to have been organised by the military junta. He and his sister Lynn now live in London - although not together - and he works as a supermarket security guard while dipping in and out of Open University courses, trying to work out what to do with his life. Weston never planned to return to Alcacia but when Blossom dies he feels that he has to pay his respects at her funeral. It should be easy - fly in, stay 48 hours in Ede City for the ceremony and then fly out again. But at the funeral he bumps into Churchill ‘Church’ Okuta, who used to viciously bully him at school and in a bid to impress him, pretends that he’s a murder detective. Unfortunately, he does too good a job of convincing Church who kidnaps him and takes him to the base of the Liberation Front of Alcacia (LFA) where the Supreme Commander tasks Weston with the job of discovering who murdered Enoch ‘Pa’ Busi (a respected diplomat trying to broker peace between the LFA and their rivals, the People’s Christian Army (PCA)) and, ideally, try to pin it on the PCA. Then the PCA separately kidnap and coerce Weston into carrying out the same investigation but trying to pin it on the LFA. With both rebel groups following his every move, Weston knows that escape isn’t an option. Fortunately his ex-girlfriend Nana is willing to help him while Church is also a useful source of information and assistance. As Weston digs deep into Alcacia’s murky politics and the mysterious circumstances of Busi’s death, he’s forced to confront his own family history and relationship with Alcacia if he’s got any hope of getting out of this alive … Tade Thompson’s hard-boiled noir makes excellent use of its fictional West African setting to send its main character on a nightmarish investigation beset by violence and corruption. However, the mystery plot doesn’t quite hang together, I needed more of Weston’s London life to flesh out how Alcacia is changing him and the female characters are noticeably under-developed for femme fatales. Saying that though, I would definitely read a sequel. I picked this up because I haven’t read many crime thrillers set in African nations and while Thompson sets this novel in a fictional West African nation (located between Nigeria and Cameroon), it still rings very true. Thompson has a vivid way with description that really brings the various locations to life and I thoroughly enjoyed the way he brings in Yoruba language and culture - it fleshes out the people and places - and the political situation (which is front and centre of the plot) works really well to ramp up the danger and the stakes. Having Weston as a returnee brings more depth to the setting as well because while he has some knowledge of how Alcacia works, he’s not up-to-date and his life in Camberwell has made him forget how things are done. Thompson puts him on a journey where you can see him getting darker and darker as he’s affected by the corruption and violence around him but I couldn’t help but think that this would have been even more effective had we got more of his life in Camberwell to understand where he was starting from. It would have also helped to explain why he’s so gullible around women and doesn’t question some of what he’s being told. Speaking of the women, I was a bit disappointed at how under-developed the female characters were in this book. I had high hopes for Nana who is clearly really intelligent and savvy but she gets sidelined half-way through and while Pa Busi’s widow Diane is a classic femme fatale, I still wanted more depth - especially given some revelations near the end. Also missing is the detail of Weston’s relationship with his Aunt Blossom who was clearly a character but who is little more than name-checked on the page. Also disappointing is how the plot kinda unravels in the final third of the book with sudden revelations and developments that haven’t really been signalled early on. I was also disappointed at how dependent Weston is on Church or Nana leading him to the next plot point, which does make sense in the early stages of the book but later on as he makes more contacts I was hoping that he’d take more of an initiative. On the plus side, Thompson writes action scenes very well and while there’s a lot of graphic death in this book, it’s not cartoonish and does fit the themes and story points in the novel. Notwithstanding my criticisms, there are tantalising elements of the story here that offer scope for future books, most notably Weston’s complicated relationship with his estranged father but also in light of plot revelations on each of Church, Nana and Diane - all of whom could bring a lot to future stories. And I have to reiterate how much scope Alcacia as a setting offers for future books with its mix of cynical and desperate people, all trying to stay alive or secure more money and power. As a result, although this book didn’t quite come together enough for me, I would nevertheless definitely read a sequel to it and I would also check out Thompson’s other books on the strength of this.