The Lazarus Effect

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.