Harmattan Season - by Tochi Onyebuchi

Book Synopsis

Award-winning author Tochi Onyebuchi's new standalone novel is hard-boiled fantasy noir: Raymond Chandler meets P. Djèlí Clark in a postcolonial West Africa

Fortune always left whatever room I walked into, which is why I don't leave my place much these days...

Veteran and private eye Boubacar doesn't need much--least of all trouble--but trouble always seems to find him. Work has dried up, and he'd rather be left alone to deal with his bills as the Harmattan rolls in to coat the city in dust, but Bouba is a down on his luck deux fois, suspended between two cultures and two worlds.

When a bleeding woman stumbles onto his doorway, only to vanish just as quickly, Bouba reluctantly finds himself enmeshed in the secrets of a city boiling on the brink of violence. The French occupiers are keen to keep the peace at any cost, and the indigenous dugulen have long been shattered into restless factions vying for a chance to reclaim their lost heritage and abilities. As each hard-won clue reveals horrifying new truths, Bouba may have to carve out parts of himself he's long kept hidden, and decide what he's willing to offer next.

From the visionary author of Riot Baby and Goliath, Harmattan Season is a gripping fantasy noir in the tradition of Chandler, Hammond, and Christie that will have you by the throat--both dryly funny and unforgettably evocative.

Review Quotes

"Blending elements of classic noir fiction (including a Chandleresque narrative voice) and fantastic acts of terroristic martyrdom, Onyebuchi crafts an equally heady and page-turning narrative. This is an unforgettable portrait of a place and a person trapped between two worlds and two cultures."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"This twisty mystery is perfect for fans of noir authors like Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler who want a new perspective along the lines of P. Djeli Clark and S. A. Chakraborty."--Booklist

"Onyebuchi (Goliath) writes a compelling mystery, adds corrupt politics, a feet-on-the-ground exploration of postcolonialism that isn't all that "post," and a jaundiced discussion of the supposed good old days, all told through the eyes of a Raymond Chandler-style detective.... [A] highly recommended hardboiled fantasy mystery."--Library Journal, starred review

Praise for Goliath

A New York Times Editors' Choice Pick
A TIME magazine Best of the Year Pick
Winner of the Connecticut Book Award for Fiction
Hurston/Wright Legacy Award Finalist

"A work of stunningly careful craftsmanship on every level. A vision of a future so plausible it's frightening. Onyebuchi's at his best here."--R. F. Kuang

"In this ambitious novel, dense with perspectives and social commentary, Onyebuchi dreams up disparate lives in a crumbling future America--with gentrifiers returning to Earth from space colonies and laborers trying to make a precarious living--while leaving room for moments of beauty and humor."--The New York Times, Editors' Choice

"Goliath contains a sprawling collection of characters making their way across a future Earth--already abandoned by the wealthy--that feels vividly, grimly real. This is an arrival."--John Scalzi

"Onyebuchi sets fire to the boundary between fiction and reality, and brings a crumbling city and an all too plausible future to vibrant life. Riveting, disturbing, and rendered in masterful detail."--Leigh Bardugo

"A big, bold future history. . . . Expertly orchestrated detail and scope . . . . a structurally ambitious novel . . . . Goliath is a giant achievement."--The Guardian

"[A] sprawling work of futuristic science fiction...Onyebuchi's tightly packed prose gives a look into the unimaginable desperation of living in a post-apocalyptic world."--Time

"Tochi Onyebuchi's searing prose is an emotional journey in every sentence, and Goliath proves that he can take on vast systems of inequality on an interstellar scale."--Gizmodo

"Harrowing, visionary. . . . it's urgent, gorgeous work."--Publishers Weekly

"An ingenious premise: Onyebuchi suburbanizes outer space and makes battered, almost uninhabitable provincial America the frontier. . . . [He] showcases an impressive range. . ."--The New York Times

Praise for Riot Baby An Alex Award Winner Winner of the New England Book Award A World Fantasy Award Winner An Ignyte Award Winner A Hugo Award Finalist Nebula Award Finalist Locus Award Finalist

"Onyebuchi's voice work is magnificent, sharp and whipping. . . . This book recognizes that intimate knowledge of suffering can be a source of strength, can be sustaining as well as depressing -- that we can grieve the inheritance of generations of ancestors' pain while marveling at their endurance, and recognize that resilience as part of their legacy."--The New York Times

"Riot Baby bursts at the seams of story with so much fire, passion and power that in the end it turns what we call a narrative into something different altogether."--Marlon James

"Onyebuchi has woven a story as uplifting as it is heartbreaking, an epic ode to the future and past, tiny acts of resistance, love, and the wild unstoppable sweep of revolution."--Daniel José Older

About the Author

Tochi Onyebuchi is the author of Goliath, a Locus Award and Dragon Award finalist, the young adult novel Beasts Made of Night, which won the Ilube Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novel by an African, its sequel, Crown of Thunder, and War Girls. His novella Riot Baby, a finalist for the Hugo, the Nebula, the Locus, and the NAACP Image Awards, won an Ignyte Award, the New England Book Award for Fiction, and an ALA Alex Award. He holds a B.A. from Yale, a M.F.A. in screenwriting from the Tisch School of the Arts, a Master's degree in droit économique from Sciences Po, and a J.D. from Columbia Law School.