Adam Oyebanji's Esperance is shortlisted for the 2026 Adventure Writing Prize. 

About the Book: 

An impossible death: Detective Ethan Krol has been called to the scene of a baffling murder: a man and his son, who appear to have been drowned in sea-water. But the nearest ocean is a thousand miles away.

An improbable story: Hollie Rogers doesn't want to ask too many questions of her new friend, Abi Eniola. Abi claims to be an ordinary woman from Nigeria, but her high-tech gadgets and extraordinary physical abilities suggest she's not telling the whole truth.

An incredible quest: As Ethan's investigation begins to point towards Abi, Hollie's fears mount. For Abi is very much not who she seems. And it won't be long before Ethan and Hollie find themselves playing a part in a story that spans cultures, continents... and centuries.

An extraordinary speculative thriller about the scars left by the Atlantic slave-trade, by a master of the genre.

An Interview with the Author: 

WNSF: Congratulations on being selected for the 2026 Wilbur Smith Adventure Writing Prize shortlist! What does adventure writing mean to you? Would you have considered yourself an adventure writer before being shortlisted for the Prize?

Adam: To me, adventure writing means Willard Price. I read him as a child, so I doubt he’s well remembered now and I’m not sure the books will have aged well. He wrote these wonderful Boys’ Own type stories where two brothers travel to exotic places, face danger with courage and decency, and do some good in the world. I believe all his books had ‘adventure’ in the title, so I’ve long since been pre-programmed with a particular view! Thinking about it now, though, I don’t think I’d shift position much. You don’t have travel far to have an adventure, nor are adventures the exclusive preserve of men and boys, but otherwise I think Mr Price had it pretty much right.

As for whether I view myself as an adventure writer, I’ve always thought of myself as a science-fiction nerd with a sideline in murder mysteries (Esperance is my first attempt at combining the two). But I also like things to happen in my books. Characters should absolutely face dangers. Some of them, at least, should try and do the right thing and, ideally, some good should come of it. On that basis, if someone suggests in future that I’m an adventure writer, I won’t argue!

WNSF: Are there any particular books or authors which have made a lasting impact on you? 

Adam: Willard Price, as mentioned. I also loved Richmal Crompton’s Just William books. I envied William his freedom to roam wild and be naughty with only limited consequences.

As you might imagine, being a science fiction person, I grew up reading science fiction adventures: Andre Norton and Alan E. Nourse. Being bi-racial and therefore an outsider by default, I was drawn to Norton and Nourse’s penchant for protagonists who were persona non grata in some way. I particularly remember Nourse’s Star Surgeon, where the main character was an alien doctor trying to make his way in a profession overwhelmingly dominated by humans: a wonderful example of SF’s ability to address social problems by the telling of parables. From there, I graduated to more grown-up SF, many of which, now I think about it, were adventure stories: E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith’s Lensman Series, Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers and Isaac Asimov’s Foundation, for instance. Also an adventure, but far and away the most haunting book I have ever read, is Joan D. Vinge’s The Snow Queen. It’s my go-to recommendation for people who don’t like science fiction. I’ve won a few converts that way!

I hesitate to add this, but it’s true, so I will. The non science fiction book that had the most impact on me was Wilbur Smith’s Dark of the Sun. I was twelve when I read it, a single dog-eared copy that was smuggled from one schoolboy to another like contraband because that’s exactly what it was. Far too racy for children! If we’d been caught with it it would have been confiscated. I don’t think it did me any harm though, and it was my first and most impactful introduction into how ‘grown-up’ people can have conflicting and sometimes self-destructive motivations. It’s a lesson I try to incorporate into everything I write.

WNSF: Can you tell us about any adventurous experiences in your life? Have they influenced you as a writer or your writing?

Adam: There are adventures, and then there are adventures. Many of my books feature sailboats because I’m fascinated by them and have both crewed and skippered them. I have certainly had ‘adventures’ while sailing. This is the safe(ish) kind of adventure, like skiing glaciers (for nutters, no thank you), or cycling across America (maybe one day).

But then there’s the other, darker kind. The not so safe ones. I can’t remember the exact quote from Lord of the Rings, but there’s a passage in The Two Towers where Sam Gamgee tells Frodo Baggins that the adventures one hears about and remembers are not fun for the characters involved. Adventures are imposed on them because no sane person would seek them out. I’ve had one or two of those, courtesy of being an outsider. Suffice to say that one of them involved killing the lights, skulking in the pitch-black basement of a block of council flats, and being far from sure that I was getting out alive. When I put my characters in danger, I try to recreate at least some of the complex swirl of emotions that I remember. Being brave doesn’t mean you’re not terrified, winning a fight doesn’t mean triumph was pre-ordained. I don’t write effortless victories. There’s seldom any such thing and it devalues the ultimate achievement.

All things considered, I’d rather go sailing!

WNSF: The Librarians and Library Staff who read, reviewed and selected your book for the shortlist wanted us to ask you a few questions, too! One said, 'I could see many affectionate 'nods' to other writers or genres in this work. It was one of the reasons I liked it so much. It felt like you were having fun drawing in influences, ideas and concepts that have resonated with you in your own reading. How did you balance your original plot and still manage to weave in these 'touches'? Did this take planning or did it come instinctively?'

Adam: Thank you for noticing! I have a mind like a stuffed attic. Everything is piled higgledy-piggledy one on top of the other without apparent rhyme or reason so, when I’m writing, I instinctively pull in the bits and pieces I stumble across inside my skull. Usually, but not always, it’s something that makes me smile. While I plan the plot quite carefully, most of the ‘touches’, as you call them, are serendipitous, things that suddenly seem to fit. With the plot out of the way, I find I have plenty of time and space to have fun with the rest of it as I move along.

WNSF: Another asked, 'As you were writing who did you realise had influenced you the most? Authors? Screenwriters? And what was it about their approach that proved so influential?'

Adam: I am not sufficiently self-aware to be conscious of the influences I am under during the act of writing. But, that said, Esperance is written as a police procedural and a murder mystery. Ed McBain (who also wrote excellent science fiction, by the way) introduced me to police procedurals with his terrific 87th Precinct books, and Agatha Christie is the author to emulate when it comes to giving the reader all the clues they need without making it easy. Lastly, if I’m proud of anything in my books, it’s the dialogue. I remember years and years ago reading a piece of advice from Lynda La Plante, who wrote Prime Suspect among many other brilliant TV shows. Her advice was this. People don’t talk in paragraphs. Don’t be afraid to write short or incomplete sentences. Advice I’ve sometimes ignored but never forgotten!

WNSF: Lastly, one asked: 'I really loved the fact that you did not draw too much attention to the 'alien' storyline, leaving it to the reader to unpick the events and come to their own conclusions. It was even dealt with quite lightly at the end of the book. Was this a deliberate decision as the author? Did you want to write a story that sat outside of a specific genre definition? Were you hoping to engage readers to think beyond their own genre safety nets?'

Adam: Yes to all of the above! What I was really trying to do was tell a story about a historic event in a fun, page-turning way without lecturing and without writing certain types of people simply as victims. I didn’t worry too much about genre; I just told the story as it came to me and trusted the reader to figure it out. Readers are smart!

WNSF: Yes! A strong sense of place is vital to any great adventure story. What role does research play in your writing? How did you make your setting feel realistic? 

Adam: Because I’m a bit of a magpie when it comes to information, I tend to know a lot of things about my subject before it ever occurs to me to write about it, so I seldom have ‘proper’ research projects going on. With regards to place, I have lived in or am otherwise familiar with pretty much all the locations in Esperance. However, when it comes to writing about a particular location, knowing stuff is less than half the battle. What really matters is how a place affects a character, how it hits their senses, the emotions it triggers. In Esperance I often found myself writing about the same place in completely different ways because my characters saw it differently.  At the end of the day, if you can fuse character with geography, your setting will be pretty much nailed.

WNSF: What would you consider to be the upsides, and the downsides, of being an author?

Adam: On the plus side, being an author means you don’t have a boss, can go to bed without setting the alarm and, most importantly of all, you get to sit down and write wonderful stories that you can share with others. The downside is that there’s a lot of ‘no’ in publishing. Like any creative endeavour, you have to live with a lot of rejection—which often means having a second job to pay the bills. Which also means you do have a boss and you do have to set the alarm!

WNSF: Thank you so much for answering our questions, Adam. And congratulations once again on being shortlisted for the Prize! 

Buy the Book:

About the Author: 

Adam Oyebanji was born in Coatbridge, in the West of Scotland, and is now in Edinburgh, by way of Birmingham, London, Lagos, Nigeria, Chicago, Pittsburgh and New York. After graduating from Birmingham University and Harvard Law School, he worked as a barrister, before moving to New York to work in counter-terrorist financing in Wall Street, helping to choke off the money supply that builds weapons of mass destruction, narcotics empires and human trafficking networks. His first novel, Braking Day, was a finalist for the Canopus Award.

What Our Reviewers Said:

"I would thoroughly recommend this book - it packs a strong emotional punch that, whilst I knew that it was coming, still connected. 'Esperance' is a searing indictment of a shameful trade that treated people as commodities, but also manages simultaneously to be an engaging sci-fi romp with a central alien character who is endearing as well as mystifying. Above all, it's a story of companionship, of shared adversity and of good triumphing over evil. Accepting the premise of this book, the aliens are most definitely out there, but the monsters are the humans whose actions prompted that alien visitation."