Truth is a Flightless Bird- Book Review

Akbar Hussain’s debut novel, Truth is a Flightless Bird, is a crime and mystery work of fiction that covers themes of personal beliefs, motivations, and morality. It was published on February 10, 2022, and has been optioned for an eight-part television mini-series with the UK-based Chudor House Productions.

Akbar is a lawyer and co-founder of a successful fintech startup. He lived in Nairobi for seven years and currently resides in New York.

The book is largely set in Nairobi and features morally ambiguous characters driven by their beliefs, love, greed, and desire for a better life individually defined. The opening scene casts Nice, the protagonist, landing in Nairobi from Mogadishu. Not only is she carrying a baby in her stomach, but also a quarter kilo of designer pills. She is hoping to make the delivery and turn a new leaf, however, things get dicey when she and her friend-zoned, unrequited-love, pastor friend, who picked her up from the airport get into an accident and get abducted by other players in the drug trade.

The book utilizes mystery and suspense to drive the plot forward, but the backstories slow the drama. Included are elaborate place descriptions that foster imagination and immerse the reader into the narrative. Akbar did a fairly good job painting the Nairobi slum picture against the affluent residential areas.

I was disappointed that the publishers drummed up Obama’s visit to Kenya as an integral backdrop, yet the visit felt haphazard and forced in the narrative. The backdrop emphasis felt like inaccurate advertising and could have been developed more in the story.

The book reminded me of The Inside Man Netflix series which highlighted that the average person is capable of murder and that the worst deeds are sometimes motivated by love.