In Beyond Any Doubt, love expression and promotion quests turn to death wishes for a lecturer in an atmosphere of envy, hate, deception, academic and libidinous conflicts. Adeoye, twenty-one, plans to wed Oyinda (twenty-one) during National Service or soon after and become a professor in the future. But he must overcome the temptation posed by Nkechi (twenty), who crushes on him and tackles the cultist who also wants Oyinda as a wife. In the process, he gets implicated in the rape and murder of Oyinda’s flatmate Jumai. A few months after the cops released him for want of evidence to prosecute, Oyinda caught Adeoye in bed with Nkechi and severed her relationship with him. Twenty-one years pass, and Adeoye marries Labi (thirty-three) after she rejects Akin (forty-three), Adeoye’s boss, with whom he competes for women. After three years of a childless marriage, Adeoye decides to marry Rotunda (twenty-six) once he becomes a professor. Hurting from previous losses to Adeoye, Akin swears to thwart his promotion. Adeoye’s elevation gets aborted just as Rotunda ends their romance. His plan to kill Akin for the setbacks fails and depression sets in. He takes to heavy drinking, vomits, aspirates, and ends in the hospital, unconscious with severe difficulty in breathing. Laboratory tests reveal that deliberate poisoning caused Adeoye’s coma, but by whom? While investigating the poisoning, a cute-looking forty-seven-year-old man traipsed into the Police Department’s lobby, and detective Njideka Anekwe tells herself that the search for Jumai’s killer has ended, but how? What connects Adeoye’s poisoning to Jumai’s killer, and what becomes of Adeoye in this riveting crime and passion story, full of surprise and suspense?
