For many years, I have been a fan reader of the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami. He has more than a couple of dozen titles under his name. In 2018, I bought and read “What I talk about when I talk about running,” which is one of them. During the same period, I read as well “The Devotion of Suspect X,” from another Japanese writer, Keigo Higashino. This latter one is a high paced crime fiction book.
Both readings inspired the plot of my manuscript “Shy Along The Serpentine.” Since April 2018 throughout September 2019, I researched and wrote the book. It is presently ready for professional editing, and before I approach a publisher. Though these days one can also self-publish.
The plot tells the story of a man, Haile Mohamed, whose undeclared love and devotion make him cover up for a crime seemingly committed by the person he secretly loves. In order to accomplish his objective, he arranges with his supposedly lover a series of necessary and controversial actions while they exercise – jogging along the Serpentine. However, they are not the only characters in the book.
In their similar contemporary neighbourhood of inner Nodnal, people of different age, nationalities, social status and professional background live. Their interconnection in the plot of the book is justified and explainable by their proximity. Their individual characters play as well a part in their involvement. Among the featured personalities are two twin sisters, aged twenty-seven each. They live together in one of the apartments on Wright’s Drive in Notgni and Aeslech. Amina Ye is one of them. The other one is Florencia Carlos. Inspector Sizwe Mtana is also involved but lives in a different part of Nodnal.
For six months Amina is engaged in a relationship with Hussein Daniel, a twenty-two years old student from a wealthy Disau family. She ends up becoming his girlfriend. He lives in an apartment his parents bought him. But he has an abusive personality, that pushes Amina’s twin sister to attempt to kill him. To cover up her sister’s crime, Amina benefits from the complicity of Haile. He suspects her of being the murderer.
The story is told and the plot develops during the jogging Amina and Haile do every week in Notgni Gardens and along the Serpentine. The ingenuity of the covering up of the crime by Haile comes to light from his incredible mind of a mathematician. Firstly he ensures primary evidence that could incriminate Amina is destroyed. Secondary he hacks into the Federal Forensic Database to make disappear the twin sisters’ information. Finally, he visits Hussein who is hospitalized and in a coma, and try to silence him forever. Along the way, he misleads inspector Sizwe into wrong directions for his investigation.
When the inspector gets closer to catching the suspect, Haile has put together enough evidence to incriminate himself, instead of the real murderer. But when Amina learnt how far he went to cover up her sister’s crime, and who he still thinks committed it, she decides to step in and turn herself in. That way, she thinks it fair because by doing so she protects her sister who did what she did because of her. As for Haile, already in police custody, he feels betrayed by the only person who had kept him on continuing living when he had found his life useless and ready to end it. But at the very end, he gets rewarded for his unflinching loyalty to his hidden love. He marries Amina.
With your pre-order (£15 a copy), I, Ambrose Nzeyimana, will send you a copy of the book after publication. You will also receive a free online edited version once completed. You can equally donate any amount you like to this Paypal account. (In the blank space under Send Money, please put ambrose@thenuanced.com). Your help will also enable to embark on a new literary project, which will be collaborative, titled Women Without Men. This was again inspired by Haruki Murakami, who wrote about Men Without Women.