The Lazarus Effect

by H.J. Golakai

Voinjama Johnson is a woman on the brink of a dark, downward spiral. Suffering from misfortunes past and present, all Vee has is her work as an investigative journalist to hang on to. Now her career, like her sanity, is under fire. A revenant haunts Vee’s steps – during her blackouts, the ghost of a strange teenage girl in a red woollen hat keeps reaching out to her. Desperate for answers, she and her new assistant Chlöe Bishop plunge into the disappearance of seventeen-year-old Jacqueline Paulsen.

As Vee and Chlöe enter the maze of a case full of dead ends, the life of their intrepid missing girl reveals a family at odds – a dead half-brother, an ambitious father running from his past and the two women he has loved and ruined, a clutch of siblings with lies in their midst. How could a young girl leave home to play tennis one bright Saturday and never be seen again, and what do the dysfunctional circle of people she knew have to hide? Every thread Vee pulls in Jacqueline’s tight weave of intrigue brings her closer to redemption and an unravelling more dangerous than she bargained for.

In compelling and witty prose, The Lazarus Effect is an evocative tale of the underbelly and otherworld of love, murder and madness in a Cape Town that visitors seldom see. This is an enthralling debut by an exciting new author in the world of crime fiction.

Genres: Africa, Mystery, Liberia, Fiction, Crime, African Literature, Mystery Thriller

360 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Hawa Jande Golakai was born in Germany and hails from Liberia, where she spent a lively childhood before the 1990 civil war erupted. She writes crime, speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction, horror, magical realism) and is in an unhealthy relationship with all twisted tales. A medical immunologist by training, she still enjoys performing autopsies and investigating peculiar medical cases in her spare time. She now writes full time and moonlights as a literary judge, creative consultant and educator.

Golakai is on the Africa39 list of most promising writers under the age of 40. She is the winner of the 2017 Brittle Paper Award for nonfiction, longlisted for the 2019 NOMMO Award for speculative fiction and nominated three times for crime fiction. She has written two novels (The Lazarus Effect, The Score). Her articles and short stories have featured in BBC, Granta, Omenana, Cassava Republic, Myriad Editions and other publications. Currently, she lives in Monrovia with her son and too many chickens.

Reviews

[Carolyn Walsh · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a slow read for me as I was having difficulty concentrating. This was the first book I completed reading in 2021 and was distracted by the COVID surge with new restrictions to figure out, the riot on TV, and a local safety alert. I do not feel I can rate it fairly. Some of my favourite books have been crime novels set in South Africa, but I probably was missing some of its nuances or subtleties. The main characters were identified by race, Black, White, or mixed parentage, but had difficulty remembering their racial background. Set in post-apartheid South Africa, I did not have a clear picture of present race relationships, conflict, reconciliation, and opportunities.
The crime and its solution were unexpected, and the characters were strongly developed. Vee, an investigative reporter, is determined to solve the disappearance of a teenaged girl who vanished two years earlier and is presumed dead. She is driven to learn what happened because she is haunted by a vision of the girl while in a psychotic trance brought on during an anxiety attack. Vee suffers from these attacks after enduring the horrors of the war in Liberia as a child, and later following a breakup with a man she loved. With the help of assistant Chloe, they question the girl's dysfunctional family (families) and her friends. They receive help from a cell phone hacker known to Chloe. Both women are in danger as they draw nearer to solving the mystery. Vee is offered a more prestigious job in journalism but is also considering becoming a private detective. It looks like she may return in a sequel.

[Daniel Shindler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Voinjama Johnson is an investigative journalist who studied at Columbia University and works in Cape Town, South Africa. The effects of her childhood escape from Liberia during their insurrection still linger in her psyche. She is also coping with the aftermath of an interpersonal relationship that did not end well. Her Kpelle grandmother has imbued her with a sense of mysticism and she is currently assailed with visions of a young teenager who appears before her at unexpected times.

During a routine visit to a health clinic, Vee sees a picture of the girl in her vision on the clinic wall. She learns that the girl in the picture has been missing for two years with no explanation for her disappearance. This revelation embarks Vee on an investigative story about this unsolved case.Her efforts lead her to a doctor in the clinic who is the father of the missing girl. Slowly a portrait of a family in disarray emerges, encompassing striving for social position, misplaced affections and loyalties and navigating the strictures of societal and racial constraints.

The author descriptively illuminates the rhythms of CapeTown and the complexities of the interactions of the diverse groups living there.The prose is lush and sometimes witty. The character development is superb.In Voinjama Johnson, the author has created a plucky heroine that I plan to meet again.

[Juliet · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm still trying to figure out how I 'feel' about this book. I love crime fiction. Most parts were enjoyable to read, but I missed the hard boiled style of the usual crisp crime fiction I read. Maybe that's it. It isn't familiar writing. However, I felt like the ending, where the protagonist explains how they came to their conclusions was a bit overdone and went in circles a bit. Would I read another Golakai? Probably, yes.

[Juwi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is really good.

It starts of pretty slow and takes a while to get into, but then you're swept away into Vee's life and the investigation of Jacqueline Paulsen.

This book has plenty of well written female characters!!! I love Vee and Chloe and I definitely prefer Joshua Allen to Titus.

Monro is the best.

So this book follows Vee Johnson, a Liberian living in South Africa. She has to deal with PTSD since she hasn't acknowledged the traumas of the Liberian civil war so she is dealing with panic attacks and seizures and living in denial that everything is fine.

Then she sees this girl in a red cap while having a panic attack and when she sees a picture of that SAME GIRL she is like WTF?! so then she tries to open up the case of the missing girl. Vee is an investigative journalist and no one wants someone digging up old stories and ruining lives again?

anyways, so she has Chloe bishop, who is her new assistant to help her (i love and admire chloe) and i love their dynamic!

Vee's life is also pretty interesting what with her friend (more than friends?) Joshua Allen appearing again and she has to deal with the choices she makes and there's a lot of reflection in this book like Vee has to make some tough decisions.

Overall, I would say, the plot was not as interesting as Vee's life and her story line especially with Joshua Allen whom I love.

There are also moments of humour as Vee has a dry sense of humour which is great!

It's also set in South Africa so it was nice to read something different. Although it made me hungry as she was eating bunny chow and I love bunny chow.

If you like crime/mysteries then you will like this, but even if you don't read crime, read it for the well written female characters and diversity and humour.

I look forward to reading the sequel next year! Can't wait to see what Vee and Chloe get up to next and I REALLY HOPE VEE MANAGES TO GET SOME PROFESSIONAL HELP AND DEAL WITH HER ISSUES coz she needs to look after herself!!!

Happy Reading!

[Calzean · Rating 2 out of 5]

A murder mystery, which is investigated by Vee Johnson, a Liberian reporter now based in Cape Town who has real issues dealing with some hidden traumas. I had no idea why a gossip mag was investigating a murder, or how someone so damaged could survive the 4 or 5 bashings which Vee experienced., or how the cadet Chloe was so proficient in her first day. A bit far fetched with characters that did not grab me.

[Rehopotsoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

a stunning read. it's gripping and sensual in all the right places...

[Mosimaneotsile Seetelo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read and fallen in love with it..,it's sad but very interesting.

[Siyamthanda Skota · Rating 4 out of 5]

- The knife carved a slice off the carrot, nearly taking with it the tip of her finger.

[Sarah Key · Rating 4 out of 5]

HJ Golakai is a highly skilled writer whose creativity and ability to bring characters to life - particularly vibrant, sassy, intelligent, kickass Voinjama Johnson – had me loving this debut novel.

We crime readers are fussy. We like it dark and we like the story to develop like a perfectly knitted garment with deliberate changes in tension and no holes between the rows of pearl and plain. No, I don’t knit! In my opinion there were problems with the plot-line, however, the author’s skill in other areas kept me engrossed. I feel an editor could have done a better job pointing out a few author conveniences that needed elimination and discouraging dumping of the plot as the resolution unfolded.

I’m all for touches of lyricism and poetry in prose and boy does Golakai deliver! Her originality and use of figurative speech (one of my favourite devices) left me rereading many a sentence. Vee’s lilting speech molded by a refugee life in far-flung places, was masterful. I guess that part of this is autobiographical? When she poured her bath water I rejoiced. As a former English teacher I am not prone to the incorrect use of verbs but this was charming.

Aside from a stupendously fresh and individual style Golakai sends subtle, yet clear messages to encourage readers to think about social issues. Sexual orientation, refugee status and gender issues are raised without preaching. The sex scenes were hot and steamy and included condomising! - a first, as far as I can remember, in my recent reading although I avoid eroticism and romance. This young author boldly promotes personal empowerment through her protagonists whilst weaving a great tale.

The reflections on the Liberian genocide will stay with me; haunting and devastating. As Robert Frost wrote, ‘Tears in the writer, tears in the reader.’ I shed those tears with Johnson/Golakai.

I greatly look forward to downloading ‘The Score’ in order to see what Vee and Chloe are up to next. Bravo on your wonderful book, Ms Golakai. You have a fan in me.

[Margie · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up. This was a bit uneven but still very engaging with a strong female protagonist and sidekick. Will definitely read the next book.

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Vee (Voijnama) Johnson has a great back story – Liberian, living in Cape Town after a stint in New York and with a degree from Columbia Journalism School she is one of two full time writers on the women-oriented Urban magazine. As the magazine’s investigative journalist, however, she is frustrated by celebrity puff-pieces, lifestyle ‘exposés’ and the like. Then, one day when she takes her best buddy’s child to the clinic (a very up market, still being constructed, ‘Wellness Institute’) she sees a photo of teenager who has been haunting her for the last few months (Vee’s backstory, as it emerges in snippets and incompletely, suggests some form of PTSD – her childhood did, after all coincide with Liberia’s brutal civil war of the 1990s). Finally, she has a name for the vision; it turns out to be the illegitimate daughter of one of the WI’s senior surgeons.

Vee fits the classic hard boiled loner of feminist crime fiction (think Sarah Paretsky’s VI Warchawski or Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s Nora Charles), except she also has the legitimate cover of journalism and never sets out to investigate a murder, just a missing teenager (who we know from the outset is dead – the insertions of Jacqui’s demise into the narrative is extremely well done, shifting between pathos and tragedy, with more than one twist. It is also the only bit of reader-privileged knowledge). The layering of effect is well done – dead children, family tensions, sexual tensions and jealousy wrapped up in teenage hormones and overlaid by the subtle and not so subtle epidermal politics of post-apartheid Cape Town’s social order.

Vee’s Liberian-ness makes her blackness external to the South African order, as does her being courted by two African Americans, while she steps into complex family politics of the people formerly known as ‘Coloured’ but with a White (German) wife. On top of this, her recently hired assistant (the most excellent Chloe Bishop) is very Old (White) Money, but excluded from the family network for social transgressions. All this adds up to Golakai being able to unsettle and disrupt presumptions about how things are, should or might be without allowing the post-apartheid-era order to intrude while at the same time framing and partly driving the narrative.

Amid all this context and setting, however, there is an intensely human and humane narrative of family dysfunction, of teenage turmoil, of adult doubt and of flawed, profoundly imperfect characters, some trying to be to grown up, some failing when they should be more grown up. What’s more, it’s engagingly written with good characters as our leads – Vee & Chloe – round out through the story (I expect more to come in subsequent adventures) and believable twists, so not really twists, just re-readings of the evidence. Golakai is a medical researcher – that shows both in the subject material and in the way she builds the evidence; there is no real big reveal, just careful exploration of the options, and plenty of adventure, kidnapping, attempted murder and assault – and that’s just what happens to Vee……

This is a promising start to a series (there is a second title and hopefully many more to come).

[Gloriac · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved this author's first (!) book. Strong, credible characters. Good, solid story. Looking forward to her next book (hint, hint).

[Boitshepo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have not posted a review here in a minute, but this, book neh, I had to.

Very early on I was impressed with how careful Hawa is in her writing, as though if she made one small error in captivating, in drawing a laugh from the reader, in diluting lingua franca very comfortably into conversation; if she neglected any of those small aspects, she'd surely have to stuff herself down a sewerage pipe in utter horror. She wrote this like she's been in the game for a good two decades and can't risk a mistake.

Other thing that intimidates me about writing a review of The Lazarus Effect, is that I'd be disappointed in Me if I fail to drive across just how much a must-read this is. Because there is a line between, "I loved this book," and, "This is a brilliant book."
There are average books that are loveable. This is not it. This is a brilliant lovable book, crafted with the kind of magical witchery that reads like it was passed down from generation to generation through blood. No seriously, so much talent.

In The Lazarus Effect:
Vee Johnson, a Liberian living in Cape Town with skeletons in her closet, starts seeing haunting reflections of a teenager she will later discover to be Jacqueline Paulsen, who has been missing for two years.

The skeletons of her past who are used to uncontested territory in her head, won't let her rest until she gets rid of this Jacqueline skeleton and seemingly, neither will Jacqueline.

And so begins the journey to dig up whatever it is that led to Jacqueline's disappearance. Is alive, or dead? Was she kidnapped, or did she run away?

Very early on the book lets the reader know gore it's over for poor Jacqueline shem. And I liked that a lot because it kind of made me as the reader feel like an integral part in the investigation - this knowing of what nobody else knows.

Needless to say, in a mystery such as this, the biggest sin the author can commit, is writing a predictable ending. But now, what I loved about Lazarus is that the story is so interactive, it fully involves you in the process of elimination, such that you are not unimpressed from not not being surprised as to the whodunit.
But then, this weaver of magic does spring in a totally unexpected twist that feels like such a surprise in spite the little clues, and it makes you want to high-five her.

This is not a quick-read. You can imagine how the mental puzzles need to stay in their places as you build the picture in your head. Like I said, the author is meticulous so will find that she takes her time in developing the characters and fully painting them for the reader. It is an interactive book after all. Yet there is also plenty left to the reader's imagination but honestly, I felt like an 'author' well-equipped to draw up the few conclusions that were left to my devices.

Absolute art showing off, this.

[Fiona Snyckers · Rating 5 out of 5]

When journalist Vee Johnson sees a photograph of a missing girl on a paediatrician's wall, she realises that she has seen her before - in her dreams.
The visions, intuitions and black-outs Vee experiences are part of an African mystical tradition passed down to her from her Liberian grandmother. They can also be a pain in the butt. As a Columbia-trained investigative journalist, Vee relies on hard skills to decipher mysteries.
The missing child comes from a difficult background. The product of an extramarital affair, she has never known whether she belongs to her single mother or to her wealthy surgeon father and his family. It's only when they need her for a bone marrow donation that her father's family expresses interest in her.
It's up to Vee to determine what this all has to do with the girl's disappearance. The Lazarus Effect is an entertaining debut from a talented and unusual author.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting crime-drama that has plenty of twists and turns, but a few too many coincidences for my taste. The story follows Voinjama (Vee) Johnson, a journalist on the trail of a missing teenage girl, whose families seem a bit too involved in her disappearance. So many secrets, so much suspicion, so many motives. There are quite a few characters that draw your attention as the possible culprit, so it is a great story that keeps you engrossed. The female characters are so well-written, which is a rarity sometimes in novels and especially in crime stories. A fun and involving read, this is great if you enjoy this genre.

[Areadinghuman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book. The story, the investigation and the characters were quite interesting. Even though the beginning was a bit difficult to follow, I found the book well structured. It has plenty of well written female characters and I definitely love Joshua also. If you like crime or just humour, you will like this book. The author knows how to get the attention of the reader, especially near the end of the story where I couldn't get myself to close the book. Also the story takes place in South Africa which is really nice and changes from the story I read.

[Sipho Lukhele · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book started really slowly for me, but I am glad I carried on reading. The plot was unpredictable and just brilliant. Strange enough, I picked up the author's second book first, but decided to go for the debut instead. Now I can't wait to get into more of Golakai's work, whom I learned right at the end of the book that is not a South African by birth. I will not do justice in doing a summary of the story, except to say it is all about trying to find what happened to a girl teenager that vanished from home. The journey is best travelled through the book.

[Veronica Flowers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully written and detailed. I loved the strong female characters- I would want to hang out with Vee and Chloe and I loved reading about their adventures. The crime itself was less captivating, and I found myself more drawn to the dialogue and narrative than the actual mystery. Looking forward to her next book in the series.

[Kirsten · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read the last half of it in one day because I had to know what was going happen. Really well-written, complex characters but still easy to invest in emotionally. Well crafted mystery, did not guess the ending ahead of time but the clues are there so it doesn’t feel like it comes from left field.

[Margot Doherty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classy crime

Now this is how it’s done! I am late to the HJ Golakai Perry and now I can’t wait to read more of her writing. Superb.