The Cellar

December 21, 2015
In this haunting short novel from Edgar-winner Walters (The Chameleon’s Shadow), Ebuka and Yetunde Songoli, a well-to-do African immigrant couple, live an unremarkable life in London, except that they keep a 14-year-old girl, Muna, locked in the cellar. It’s only after their 10-year-old son, Abiola, disappears on his way to school and the police are called that the Songolis are forced to pretend that Muna is their actual, though mentally disabled, daughter and move her to a real room. But Muna, who previously was only allowed to address the Songolis as Princess and Master, is quite able, despite not knowing how to read or write. As the police investigation grinds on, it becomes clear that Muna has plans of her own that don’t involve cooking, cleaning, or being sexually abused by Ebuka any longer. The violence, in keeping with the grim underpinnings of the tale, might be too much for some readers, but Walters nails a perfect blend of psychological suspense and social commentary that resonates long after the book is over. Agent: Jane Gregory, Gregory & Company Authors’ Agents (U.K.).

Starred review from September 15, 2015
This short work reads like a recipe for evil and may well induce a nightmare or two. The Songoli family's peace is shattered when their young son disappears, but this tragedy is a blessing for 14-year-old Muna. With Scotland Yard on the case and the media close by, the girl they stole from an orphanage, kept in the basement, and mercilessly abused is allowed a bedroom, clean clothes, and the status of "daughter." Yetunde no longer demands to be called "Princess" and pretends maternal affection during police interviews. Ebuka's sexual assaults and even son Olubayo's leering and threats have tapered off. Since the family members believe their own repeated statements about Muna's being illiterate and brain-damaged, they can't conceive of her as a threat. This portrait of an immigrant family living in a white world is densely layered. The attention of investigators is insulting and condescending at times, and it's easy to instinctively take the Songolis' side, only to remember they're monsters with a terrible secret. Walters (Innocent Victims, 2012, etc.) plays with that tension to great effect; each time a Songoli learns something new about what Muna is actually capable of it's a terrifying thrill...and it turns out she's quite capable. When she calmly tells Ebuka, "As your life gets worse, mine gets better" and repeatedly reminds the family that she's nothing more or less than what they've made her, this becomes less a taste of delicious revenge than a meditation on the consequences of abuse. Those brave enough to admit fault and apologize have some hope of forgiveness, but this is a defiant family for whom things more often end poorly and with true horror. That it's all related so calmly only increases the tension. Sly pacing and a detached narrative voice give this horror story exceptional punch.

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May 1, 2016

Stolen from her home in Africa six years earlier, 14-year-old Muna lives as a slave to Ebuka, Yetunde, and their two boys. When she is not cleaning or tending to the family, she is hidden in the cellar, her one refuge. Daily beatings and berating by Yetunde leave her silent and wary. And even the cellar provides no real safety, for she is regularly raped by Ebuka. But when the younger boy goes missing, things change for Muna. Brought up from the cellar and into her own room, given new clothes, and disguised as the family's mentally deficient daughter, Muna relishes her new position as the police question her and the family. Weeks go by, but the boy's disappearance remains unsolved. Throughout the questioning, it becomes apparent that not only is Muna not mentally deficient but she is intelligent, has learned English, and is determined to create a life for herself by using those who have cruelly taken advantage of her. Not knowing whom to trust and unaware of the wider world, Muna works step by patient step, exacting revenge upon this family. One by one, family members begin to realize that Muna has more power than they thought possible. By the end, readers will be pondering: Are killers born, or are they created?

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 1, 2015
Fourteen-year-old Muna was kidnapped from a Nigerian orphanage when she was eight, and trafficked to London as a slave for the wealthy Songoli family. Since then, she's endured the abuse and indignities too frequently chronicled in recent news stories, expected to be grateful for the shelter of her cellar prison and the sustenance of occasional food scraps. When Abiola, the Songoli's youngest son, disappears after leaving for school one day, Muna is released from the cellar to masquerade as the Songolis' developmentally delayed daughter while the police investigate. But Muna is not as defenseless as the Songolis believe, and she sees this turn of fortune as her chance to use her hidden mastery of English to outplay her captors. This is psychologically and physically brutal yet breathless reading; Walters challenges readers' concepts of justice and casts light on the abetting role of passive witnesses. Ruth Rendell's Simisola (1996) and Lene Kaaberbol's The Boy in the Suitcase (2011) also approach human trafficking from a psychological-thriller perspective with similarly phenomenal, if less visceral, results.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

November 1, 2015

Once upon a time, a girl is plucked from her convent school in Africa and spirited away to a home in England. There little Mura is kept confined to the cellar and becomes the object of every type of abuse imaginable by her captors, Mr. and Mrs. Songoli and their two sons, who are all incredibly creepy. If that weren't enough, she's subjected to hours of the daily soap operas that are Mrs. Songoli's passion, when she's not feeding salted almonds to her two boys. The family has managed to pass Mura off as brain damaged until one day one of the sons disappears, and the bureaucracy makes its presence felt in the formerly inviolate household. Then Mura sees an opportunity to put into practice the lessons she has absorbed from those soap operas. It turns ugly fast. VERDICT A short novel, packed with unpleasant characters, and with an ambiguous ending, is no way to woo readers, yet those who enjoy their fairy tales fractured, in the style of Angela Carter and Roald Dahl, will revel in this decidedly dark and droll retelling of the story of a kick-ass Cinderella by veteran writer Walters (The Chameleon's Shadow), winner of an Edgar Award and two Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Awards, among others. [See Prepub Alert, 8/10/15; library marketing.]--Bob Lunn, Kansas City, MO

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2015

Winner of an Edgar (among multiple awards), Walters is a best-selling author in the UK. Here, affluent African immigrants have enslaved an African girl named Muna but start treating her better when their son vanishes and Scotland Yard appears. And clever Muna hatches a plan.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 25, 2016
Walters’s nightmarish Cinderella story focuses on 14-year-old Muna, who was “rescued” from an orphanage by wealthy Ebuka and Yetunde Songoli when she was eight and has been enslaved by the couple ever since, including being beaten by the wife and raped by the husband. For the last six years, since the horrific Songolis moved from Nigeria to England, Muna has been kept in the cellar of their London townhouse, a situation that improves when the couple’s 10-year-old son goes missing. The arrival of a very observant policewoman forces them to present Muna as their mentally challenged daughter and move her to a real room. Most of the book’s dialogue is spoken by the members of the Songoli household, and reader Eyre’s Nigerian English seems authentic. She’s equally effective at finding a cool, no-
nonsense English voice for the policewoman. But the upper-class British accent with which she tells the novel’s story is so clipped it almost qualifies as parody. This distances the listener from Muna’s torturous situation and undercuts the book’s suspense. It also slightly buffers the graphic descriptions of violence and sexual abuse, which some may find a relief. A Grove/Atlantic/Mysterious hardcover.