I Do Not Come to You by Chance

March 2, 2009
In this highly entertaining novel about Nigerian Internet scammers, Kingsley Ibe is an engineering school graduate who can’t find a job and still lives at home with his family. After his girlfriend rejects him and his father dies, Kingsley is taken on by his Uncle Boniface (aka Cash Daddy), who is in the business of Internet scams, otherwise known as 419s. Soon, Kingsley is writing e-mail solicitations to the gullible of cyberspace, and any qualms he may have had about ripping off innocent people evaporate as he steps into the good life with a big new house, a Lexus and a new love interest (who doesn’t know how Kingsley “earns” his money). Meanwhile, Cash Daddy develops political ambitions and gains some ruthless enemies bent on crushing him. As the plots converge, Kingsley must decide whether to sell his soul to build a 419 kingdom. Although the narrative follows a somewhat predictable trajectory, Kingsley’s engaging voice and the story’s vividly rendered setting prove that while crime may not pay, writing about it as infectiously as Nwaubani does certainly pays off for the reader.

April 1, 2009
Thwarted in his ambition to become an engineer, a young Nigerian is lured by his charismatic uncle into a lucrative empire of e-mail scams.

Kingsley is the eldest child of parents who worship learning and play by the rules. But his father's failing health and resulting retirement have landed the family in genteel poverty, and when Kingsley emerges from the university he feels obliged to support them. Engineering jobs are scarce and elusive, alas, and first novelist Nwaubani ratchets up the pressure: Kingsley's fiance cuts him loose, and his father Paulinus suffers a stroke. In a harrowing scene, the family rushes from hospital to hospital, looking for one that will admit Paulinus, comatose and still internally bleeding, without cash payment up front; when, finally, they call upon a distant relative's influence to secure help, they're issued a list of items to buy that includes IV bags and syringes. Desperate, Kingsley calls upon rich Uncle Boniface, aka"Cash Daddy," a successful and extravagant"419er" (after the section in Nigeria's penal code that he runs roughshod over). He imagines he's just getting a loan from his uncle, but before long the would-be engineer finds himself enmeshed in the work of finding"mugus" (suckers) from the developed world, luxuriating in the lavish perks that come from that work—and, of course, headed for a final reckoning. The prose is merely functional, the plotting a little schematic, but Cash Daddy is a charming scapegrace, and Kingsley's moral dilemma has real interest. Nwaubani's portrait of contemporary Nigeria and her account of the financial and ethical convolutions of the developing world compel the reader's attention.

Not perfect, but an entertaining and promising debut from a Nigerian native.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

April 15, 2009
The notorious world of Nigerian email scams is brought to life in this vibrant debut. Kingsley, a recent university graduate in southeastern Nigeria, is unable to find a job in the engineering field. After his longtime girlfriend leaves him for a successful businessman and a series of tragedies leaves his family in dire financial straits, he turns to his uncle Boniface, a.k.a. Cash Daddy, the mastermind behind a gang of "419" scammers. The novel has one foot in the postcolonial African literary traditionCash Daddy has some characteristics of larger-than-life political or military leadersbut the technological aspects and exploration of a society obsessed with money give it a postmodern slant. In addition, the plot and themes bear some resemblance to those of urban fiction and should draw in a variety of readers. What begins as an engaging character study driven by sharp satire and colorful, off-kilter dialog eventually loses its way, much like its protagonist, in the murky world of the scammers but remains a unique and entertaining read throughout.Forest Turner, Suffolk Cty. House of Correction Lib., Boston

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2009
Education is everything to Kingsleys family in Nigeria; but times are hard, and when he cannot find a job as a new graduate in chemical engineering, his girlfriend dumps him, and he moves in with his immensely wealthy uncle Boniface (call me Cash Daddy), who makes a fortune scamming foreigners on the Internet (If you help us with this transaction, we will give you 20 percent, which comes to $11.6 million . . . I hope this amount is satisfactory). This long debut novel is really one situation told over and over again. But the details of Cash Daddys gross consumerism in his mammoth mansion are hilarious, especially mixed in with the 419 scam e-mails and with the absurd administrative uplift jargon he throws about while running for political office. The inevitable connections with todays headlinesrevelations of multimillion-dollar investment scams and rampant malfeasance from major banksbrings this wild corruption story very close to home.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)