The Fall of Saints

Heavy-handed foreshadowing mars wa Ngugi's otherwise-engaging first novel, a thriller set in the U.S. and Africa. When Kenyan %C3%A9migr%C3%A9 Mugure, a part-time receptionist and messenger at a small Manhattan law firm, marries Zack Sivonen, an attorney at another firm, she no longer has to work. Unfortunately, Mugure finds her existence aimless, and her and Zack's unsuccessful efforts to have a baby depressing. The adoption of a two-year-old boy, Kobi, promises a brighter future, but things start to come apart after Mugure stumbles on a document relating to the adoption, and her further probing into its circumstances leads to threatening phone calls, and worse. Several chapter-ending paragraphs broadly hint at trouble to come (e.g., "A few years later, with the blood and tears of agony flowing all around me, hope and deliverance precariously resting in the Kenyan police force, I would wonder whether it was a higher power that made me break my pact with myself"). Agent: Gloria Loomis, Watkins Loomis Literary Agency. (Feb.)