two good novels, two good mysteries
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s 2005 Purple Hibiscus, her first novel. Very good writer, just as good as Americannah and Half a Yellow Sun. The narrator Kambili Achike is a 15-year-old Nigerian girl growing up in sheltered privilege in a country ravaged by political strife and personal struggle. She builds the novel slowly, with great characters.
Mourning Ruby, 2005, by Helen Dunmore. Didn’t like the built in other novel, think it’s an irritating technique, but other than that, the book is good. Sad story but it has a good ending.
Two mysteries by Lesly Thomson, same character as the protaganist.
The Detective’s Daughter 2013, and Ghost Girl, 2014. She runs a cleaning business, Clean Slate, and is very organized but is dragged into her father’s old unsolved cases, happily.