What if money simply stopped? Not vanished, but stopped. That is the chilling premise of In a Blink, the new political thriller by Lagos-based author, entrepreneur and HRD Solutions founder, Osayande Omo-Osagie, set for release on November 16, 2026.

In the novel, cash machines go blank on the eve of Sallah, point-of-sale terminals fail, phones lose signal and filling stations shut. By morning, queues become crowds, shops are looted and families begin to flee cities they thought were home.

Told on two tracks, the story follows Obah, a junior risk officer inside a Lagos bank who finds his warning reaching the emergency corridors of Aso Rock, and Andy, an ordinary husband and father trying to move his wife and three children to safety through a country turning on itself.

The book lands at a moment Nigerians will recognize. From recent cash shortages during the naira redesign to fuel queues and election-season uncertainty, Omo-Osagie takes lived pressures to their limit and asks what happens when payments, power, fuel and communication fail together.

The author, who is also CEO of workforce advisory firm HRD Solutions Ltd, writes in plain, observant prose. He favours detail over ornament, moving easily between standard English and Pidgin, and allowing small moments – a locked gate, a dwindling envelope of cash, a radio dissolving into static – to carry the tension.

Beyond the thriller plot, the novel explores three timely themes: how fragile everyday systems are, how trust frays in an election season, and how kindness endures across divides.

At its heart is the story of Andy and his wife Esther, whose inter-ethnic marriage was rejected by their own families, and who find refuge in a Muslim household led by an imam who never asks where they come from.

Industry watchers say the novel speaks to a wider African reality, where digital payments are expanding alongside a large cash economy, making questions of system resilience urgent well beyond Nigeria.

In a Blink does not offer easy solutions or tidy villains. Instead, it holds up a mirror to how people behave when the ground shifts and what they owe one another when it does.

The novel will be available nationwide from November 16, 2026.