Her enmeshed, dysfunctional family creates serious problems for Korede, who only wants to pursue a normal romance with a handsome doctor.

The problem is her sister, Ayoola, an extraordinarily beautiful woman, who is fully aware of her effect on men, and uses it for entertainment, expensive gifts, and attention. When these benefits wain, out comes the knife, literally. And Korede is called in to clean up the mess, dispose of the body and evidence. Long her sister’s protector, Korede doesn’t know how to break the pattern, the trap that prevents her from moving forward with her own life and desires. Korede is a highly competent nurse, becoming chief nurse at a hospital in Lagos, Nigeria, and she is in love with a doctor she works with, Tade. It is only a matter of time before Tade meets Ayoola, and ruins Korede’s life yet again.

Disclosures show us how this web was woven years before, as the girls witnessed and experienced the abusiveness of their father and their mother’s passive acceptance. Korede became her beautiful sister’s protector, reading subtle cues and dragging her away before her father erupted or used the girls for personal gain. Their mother blamed Korede for any failure to protect Ayoola, whom the mother deemed perfect in every way, blind to her laziness, manipulativeness, and lack of personal responsibility.

Korede creates a similar scenario at work, surrounded by lazy nurses who know she will pick up the slack, be responsible, and make things right for the patients. She wishes Tade would see her good qualities, and recognize how good she would be for him—no doubt, making his life perfect by taking care of everything. Oddly, the one person who understands and appreciates her is a man in a coma to whom she tells her woes. A humorous twist occurs when the man wakes up and remembers everything she disclosed.

Braithwaite has a keen understanding of dysfunctional dynamics, as she creates Korede’s trap perfectly, both the roles and gains of each member of this puzzle, flawlessly balanced, and inescapable from Korede’s viewpoint. Braithwaite does this with subtle humor—not hilarious silliness, but understated irony, allowing the situation and its absurdity to underline the tragic farce. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, which really surprised me, given the title and jarring content. It is not violent or gratuitously disgusting; even the clean up of the crime has an ironic element. The reader is led to marvel and wonder at Korede’s diligence, competence, and drive in cleaning up her sister’s messes; almost forgetting to puzzle over Ayoola’s pathology and its motivations. I highly recommend this entertaining novel.