Simisola

“Ruth Rendell is the best mystery writer in the English-speaking world.”—Time No one admitted to spotting the doctor's missing daughter—even after the murders began. Melanie Akande, eschewing privilege, had insisted on going to the jobsearch office to find employment. But between that office and the bus stop, she vanished. Inspector Wexford hoped someone would have noticed her, since the Akandes were among the few Africans living in Kingsmarkham. Instead, he had found a middle-aged white woman strangled in bed, and a mysterious black girl buried in a shallow grave. Now Wexford, seeking connections among the three women, cast his baleful eye on the changes in once rural Sussex—from a Kuwaiti millionaire's Rolls-Royce to the growing slums and dismal hopelessness of unemployed youth. What he can't see among them is the shocking, blood-chilling motive to kill. And what he has yet to find is a doctor's missing child . . . Praise for Simisola “One of the author's best!”—The New York Times Book Review “Rendell delivers a complex crime deftly unraveled.”—Daily News (New York)

In 1929, Ronald Knox, a prominent member of the English Detection Club, included in his tongue-in-cheek Ten Commandments for Detective Novelists the rule that "No Chinaman must figure in the story." In 1983, Ruth Rendell published Speaker of Mandarin, reflecting not only a change in British detective fiction but also a dramatic change in the British cultural landscape. Like much of the rest of British popular culture, the detective novel became more and more ethnically diverse and populated by characters with increasingly varied religious backgrounds. Ten essays examine the changing nature of British detective fiction, focusing on the shifting view of "otherness" of such authors as Ruth Rendell, Elizabeth George, Peter Ackroyd, Caroline Graham, Christopher Brookmyer, Denise Mina and John Mortimer. Unlike their American counterparts, British detective writers have been until recently, overwhelmingly white, and the essays here explore how these authors delve into ethnic diversity within a historically homogeneous culture. Religion has also played an important role in the genre, ranging from the moral certainty of the early part of the 20th century to the skepticism and hostility that is part of contemporary fiction. How this transition was made and how it reflects the changing nature of British culture are detailed here.

The author treats, in historical and philosophical terms, the contributions of the traditionally marginalized genre of detective fiction to epistemology: how detective fiction not only traces the progression of knowledge and its discovery, as has been the traditional model for understanding this genre, but, in fact, constructs it through narrative. Particular focus is on Colin Dexter, creator of the Inspector Morse character and series. This work also links detective fiction to more legitimate, accepted realms of literature and criticism: semiotics (the reading of clues, with the body as a major one); epistolary fiction, long hailed as an early form of the modern novel; and heteroglossia, an important aspect of Marxist theory, here linked to the power struggles and imbalances produced by the pursuit and construction of knowledge.

A philosophical novel about exploitation, in particular the evangelical factor. Olumofin, a Nigerian Attorney now living in the US, stands at the intersection of culture-crossings implicating the fate of his African identity within the American world, especially that of his intended intimacy with an African-American Creole. In an attempt to come to terms with the past, initiated by present criminal currents in the news media regarding the depraved religious practices of his estranged father, he unleashes, through shifting thought processes that crosses from Lagos to New Orleans, the demons of exploitation (humorous as well as tragic) that have defined his colonial upbringing and the cross-cultural paths of his future African-American in-laws.

An Instant New York Times Bestseller! Detective Sergeant Barbara Havers and Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley are back in the next Lynley novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth George. When a police detective is taken off life support after falling into a coma, only an autopsy reveals the murderous act that precipitated her death. She'd been working on a special task force within North London's Nigerian community, and Acting Detective Superintendent Thomas Lynley is assigned to the case, which has far-reaching cultural associations that have nothing to do with life as he knows it. In his pursuit of a killer determined to remain hidden, he's assisted by Detective Sergeants Barbara Havers and Winston Nkata. They must sort through the lies and the secret lives of people whose superficial cooperation masks the damage they do to one another.

Prelude Though I was tagged a failure, everyone saw my little reactions as hysterical. The few times I responded to the callousness of people, I was being melodramatic, and when I didnt, I was being myself . . . the fool. I would have expected to be the apple of my dads eye, considering he claimed he loved my mum so much, till he found out she was a cheat, but what was my crime in my mums unfaithfulness? I barely knew her. The only crime I committed for being abused, trampled on, humiliated, almost abandoned, and so on in Oxford Dictionarys strongest negative terms was being my mothers child. I am a failure today because Mrs Funmi Jaxson brought me to life. While a lot of ladies wore designer lipsticks, compact powders, mascaras, amongst so many others as daily make-up, I was forced to permanently be teary-eyed while wearing my snotty nose. Well, I guess I got my own make-up for free. Even my sense of humour could not stop the emotions from flowing excessively while others laughed and I cried for hours, wondering how I missed the jokes. I guess when the joke is on you, its not so funny anyway. I couldnt help but wonder what made a lot of people smile and look content when they looked into the mirror. For me, I saw absolutely nothing. The strongest people in life are those we stand tall despite the hurdles in their lives. Truth is, success doesnt only come with a price; it has determination glued to it; they are intertwined. Failure isnt failing at what you do; its accepting the title failure, wallowing in it, and making it a comfort zone. Turns out that disbelieving in the power of our dreams and failing to pursue them with a passion is the worst form of failure. Failures are often stepping stones to success. Then it becomes our choice to either learn from them and develop ourselves or make choices that will break us further. Imagine life as an adventure we have to stumble fearlessly into with more than a flicker of hope. Most successful people today didnt make it easily. They fell, dusted themselves up, and tried again more than a couple of times. The trick is fixing your gaze on the prize and not the present circumstances. If you know where you are heading, failure wont set you back. Life never promised anyone perfection. It only promised to give us a chance which will eventually allow us to make decisions that will reshape who we are negatively or positively . . . Miss Carim, 2013. Let yesterday be a tool to help shape your today when preparing for tomorrow . . . Miss Carim, 2013.

Simisola Jane Black shouldn’t be approached: she was weird, strikingly peculiar and physically unkempt: and she possessed that cold look that could be staring into your very soul.But Ronald Joseph Adetokunbo - the deported felon, the man hiding behind the scars of an unknown past and frustrated in every sense - came, saw her and fell sharply in love with her.They wanted and needed each other. And in their desperation and love they’d try to run away from it all - their eccentric, ignominious world of neglect.Instead they find themselves running away from an assassin’s bullet, an assassin dedicated to the cause of seeing them dead in togetherness so a dreadful secret will remain concealed.And lurking is the curse that rages and threatens,...