{ "item_title" : "Esperance", "item_author" : [" Adam Oyebanji "], "item_description" : "**Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist** D]extrously blends genres in this suspenseful sci-fi mystery.... Rob Hart and Blake Crouch fans should check this out. -- Publishers WeeklyLovers of sharp, fast sci-fi from the likes of Neal Stephenson will be right at home with Esperance. --BookPage (starred)A whip-smart thriller in the vein of Blake Crouch, Andy Weir, and Neal Stephenson, Esperance plumbs the depths of a seemingly impossible crime rooted in racism, intergenerational trauma, and an inhuman concept of justice Detective Ethan Krol is on the twentieth floor of a Chicago apartment building. A father and son have been found dead, their lungs full of sea water--hundreds of miles away from the ocean. Abidemi Eniola has arrived in Bristol, England. She claims to be Nigerian, but her accent is wrong and she can do remarkable things with technology, things that her new friend, Hollie Rogers, has never seen before. Abi is in possession of a number of heirlooms that need to be returned to their rightful owners, and Hollie is more than happy to go along for the ride. But neither Abidemi Eniola nor her heirlooms are quite what they seem. Abi is a target of Ethan Krol's investigations, and Hollie's life is about to become far stranger than she bargained for. In a clash of cultures, histories, and different ideas about justice, the consequences will be deadly...", "item_img_path" : "https://covers1.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/75/641/991/0756419913_b.jpg", "price_data" : { "retail_price" : "29.00", "online_price" : "29.00", "our_price" : "29.00", "club_price" : "29.00", "savings_pct" : "0", "savings_amt" : "0.00", "club_savings_pct" : "0", "club_savings_amt" : "0.00", "discount_pct" : "10", "store_price" : "" } }

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Murder, justice and truth lie at the core of Adam Oyebanji’s brisk, intelligent genre mashup, Esperance. In 1806, the titular French ship was sunk by the British navy off the coast of Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean—not an unusual fate in that time period. The full story of the Esperance, though, is more complicated.

Two hundred years after Esperance was sunk, Chicago detective Ethan Krol investigates a double murder. The coroner’s report reveals an impossibility: The victims were drowned, seawater leaking from their lungs, in an apartment 500 miles from the nearest ocean. Meanwhile, in Bristol, England, a woman named Abi materializes out of thin air. She speaks like a 1930s gangster and dresses like one, too. Hollie Rogers encounters and takes a liking to Abi, detecting a strong sense of purpose in her, a longing for something just out of reach. As they both seek answers, Ethan and Abi seem destined to collide as they unravel what happened to Esperance and the people connected to it.

A great sci-fi noir (a bit of a niche subgenre, but a beloved one nonetheless) needs to hook you immediately, and Oyebanji’s thriller does just that. He sets a speedy pace, with short chapters and dialogue-heavy sections increasing the sense of momentum. The narrative pings back and forth between Ethan’s and Abi’s perspectives, as if there are two sizzling fuses lit at either end of a stick of dynamite. We can’t tell which one will cause the explosion, but we know that it’s coming. Esperance is fundamentally interested in justice, particularly in whom justice is delivered to and how.

Lovers of sharp, fast sci-fi from the likes of Neal Stephenson will be right at home with Esperance. For this reader, it scratched about a dozen itches at once and then some. It’s exciting, inventive and murky, an ocean worth the plunge.