Review: It Begins with One Murder

In It Begins with One Murder, the bachelorette-party-gone-wrong becomes far more than a clever hook. It’s the gateway to a taut, character-driven mystery that interrogates privilege, nostalgia, and the corrosive power of secrets. What begins as a glittering reunion of former classmates quickly unravels into a nightmare, one that forces its protagonist, Kaley Attah, to confront not only a killer but the ghosts of the life she left behind.

Review by Philo O'fuose

Author: Ray Anyasi

Publisher: Naphtali Book, Eihnu

Rating: 4 STARS

Kaley, a UK-based architect returning to Nigeria after nearly a decade away, is the novel’s emotional anchor. Her outsider status, once a scholarship student among the elite, now a reluctant returnee, gives the narrative its sharpest lens. The author uses Kaley’s perspective to explore the dissonance between who we were in adolescence and who we become, and how old hierarchies can reassert themselves the moment we step back into familiar rooms.

The bachelorette party, meant to celebrate Temi, a high school classmate, is rendered with cinematic precision: the matching red dresses, the curated luxury, the brittle laughter that masks old resentments. When Tolani, a male former classmate who crashed the festivities, is found dead the next morning, the party’s carefully constructed façade collapses.

The brilliance of the setup lies in its simplicity: Security footage shows a woman in a red dress driving Tolani’s car out of the compound. Every woman at the party wore red.

This single image becomes the novel’s fulcrum. It transforms the group of bridesmaids into a gallery of potential suspects, each with motives that range from petty to devastating. The author excels at peeling back their layers, jealousies, betrayals, debts, and the quiet violence of social climbing, until the reader realizes that the murder is not an aberration but the inevitable eruption of long-simmering tensions.

Kaley’s involvement in the investigation is both coerced and organic. Tolani’s father, Kayode Olode, a man whose wealth casts a long shadow, recruits her to spy on the other women. Inspector Jacob Wamako, ambitious and perceptive, becomes her uneasy partner. Their dynamic is one of the novel’s strengths: a blend of mutual suspicion, reluctant respect, and the shared understanding that the truth is far uglier than either of them initially imagined.

Kaley’s internal conflict, between loyalty and self-preservation, between the desire to belong and the instinct to flee, adds emotional depth to the procedural spine of the story. She is not a detective by nature, but the narrative makes a compelling case that sometimes survival requires becoming one.

While the plot delivers all the pleasures of a classic whodunit, misdirection, escalating stakes, a rising body count, the novel’s true ambition lies in its exploration of power. The elite high school the characters once attended becomes a microcosm of Nigerian class dynamics: who gets protected, who gets sacrificed, and who learns to weaponize silence.

The author refuses to romanticize privilege. Instead, they expose its rot: the way wealth can distort accountability, the way old boys’ networks can shield predators, the way young women are taught to compete rather than confide. The murder is not simply a crime; it is a symptom.

Stylistically, the novel balances pace with introspection. The prose is vivid without being overwrought, and the dialogue crackles with the kind of coded hostility that only former classmates can muster. The setting, Lagos nightlife, gated compounds, humid mornings thick with dread, feels alive, textured, and integral to the story’s momentum.

It Begins with One Murder is a gripping, atmospheric thriller that transcends its genre trappings. It’s a story about the lies we tell to survive, the hierarchies we inherit, and the dangerous nostalgia of returning home. With its layered characters, sharp social commentary, and escalating tension, it stands out as a mystery that is as emotionally resonant as it is compulsively readable.

Philo O'fuose is a seasoned editor, publisher and Editor/Lead literature critique for Bookause. She holds a Art Degree from the University of Cagliari and lives in Canada.