A Carrion Death

Audiobook performed Simon Prebble

Kalahari game rangers spot circling vultures, and always on the lookout for poaching activity they go to investigate. They find a human corpse, mostly eaten by hyenas, the remains scattered in the area. There are several unusual things about this body – most poachers are black, and this person was white; the deceased was also naked; and his/her teeth had all been knocked out and one forearm was missing. There have been no reports of any missing tourists or residents. Detective David “Kubu” Bengu of the Botswana CID is called in to investigate. He soon uncovers clues and additional crimes which all revolve around the powerful Botswana Cattle and Mining Company and its leaders.

This is a wonderful show more debut mystery with a great central character. Kubu got his nickname at school because of his size – Kubu is the Setswana word for hippopotamus. Like his namesake he is a seemingly slow and docile beast, but the detective is far from lumbering in his investigation. He combines intelligence, excellent education and sound police procedures with tenacity and a keen intuition to ferret out the truth. The author humanizes Kubu by his love of opera, good wine and his wife, Joy. I can just picture him driving across the desert landscape singing arias.

The plot is fast paced and complicated. This is a much darker and more dangerous Botswana than that portrayed in Alexander McCall Smith’s popular No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. There are plenty of suspects and several plot twists that I did not see coming. The book is divided into parts, and the first four alternate in time frame – March, January, March, January-February – before returning to the March “present” and continuing in a fairly accurate chronological sequence. This was a little confusing at first, especially since I was listening to the audiobook, but a quick check of the text helped me put things in the right order.

Simon Prebble is marvelous performing the audio book. His pacing is good and his acting brings the novel to life. There are a number of characters of different nationalities and he capably handled all the various accents. In fact his use of voices gave me a huge clue in determining the culprit; one character’s talent for mimicry would not be as evident on the page as it was on the audio.

I’ll definitely keep reading this series. show less

I read elsewhere that the author is really the joint venture of two different people, and this explained my sense of distinctness of two separate plot lines, one related to westerners and their obsession with diamonds and money, the other a much more African viewpoint. Nevertheless, the book works well and was a very enjoyable listen, well read.

Detective Kubu (Swahili dialect for hippopotamus, his nickname) is a sort of fat Columbo. He's extremely likable, the assistant superintendent of police in Gaborone, sings opera in his car, loves his wife (the scenes where he and Joy visit his relatives is very entertaining in its apparently authentic formalistic dialogue between father and son,) and is very wily and smart. I love characters who show more appear somewhat bumbling or unattractive on the surface, but who have a core of competence and character. Kubu fits that bill nicely. His nickname is appropriate not only for his appearance but also because the hippopotamus is one of the most feared animals in Africa, extremely dangerous when challenged.

Recounting the plot would be spoiling and redundant. Suffice it to say the contrast between a very professional African society with the European BCMC diamond owners is instructive. The ending becomes a bit chaotic as things begin to unravel for the bad guys/gals. Those looking for a pure version of one of those genres will be disappointed, but I did not find the mixture distracting.

It's impossible not to think of Alexander Smith's Ladies Detective Agency series while reading this, but they are similar only in geography. Both authors clearly love Africa in general; and Botswana in particular.

Interview with the authors at http://www.onceuponacrimebooks.com/stanley.html show less

The body appeared to have been deliberately dumped naked near the waterhole. Or so it seemed from the remains the hyenas had left.

Dales Camp, the bush resort near where the body had been found on the verge of the Central Kalahari Game Reserves in Botswana, is 4 hours drive from the capital Gaborone. Not that Assistant Superintendent "Kibu" Bengu of the Botswana police minds the drive. It gives him the chance to sing opera.

At the crime scene Kubu meets the conservationist who discovered the body and finds trapped in the bushes a cash slip for petrol. This is the beginning of the tenuous thread the subsequent investigation hangs on. It is obvious that the murderers have tried to hide the identity of the body, but they reckoned without show more Kubu Bengu.

As the blurb says A CARRION DEATH is set in a world of poachers, witch doctors, diamond-smuggling, and corruption. For all that, this is a complex and many-threaded tale. It is an impressive debut novel structured in a way that gets the reader thinking. For example, the events are layered in time rather than sequential, so you are forced to take notice of chapter headings. There are little puzzles to solve and as one is resolved, the next presents. It is also populated with engaging characters such as Kubu Bengu, his wife Joy, and his boss Mabake. We've become a little used to detectives who have to struggle against their superiors, which makes Mabake, who wants to think the best of Kubu, a refreshing character. Contrasting with these characters are those who are truly evil, and than those who are the dupes, caught in the middle. There are references too to comtemporary political issues such as Botswana trying to shake of semi-colonial controls through legacy companies, and blood diamonds.

A CARRION DEATH is among my top reads for 2010. show less

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Book Description: Smashed skull, snapped ribs, and a cloying smell of carrion. Leave the body for the hyenas to devour-no body, no case.

But when Kalahari game rangers stumble on a human corpse midmeal, it turns out the murder wasn't perfect after all. Enough evidence is left to suggest foul play. Detective David "Kubu" Bengu of the Botswana Criminal Investigation Department is assigned to the case.

The detective's personality and physique match his moniker. The nickname "Kubu" is Setswana for "hippopotamus"-a seemingly docile creature, but one of the deadliest on the continent. Beneath Kubu's pleasant surface lies the same unwavering resolve that makes the hippopotamus so deceptively dangerous. Both will trample show more everything in their path to reach an objective.

From the sun-baked riverbeds of the Kalahari to the highest offices of an international conglomerate, Kubu follows a blood-soaked trail in search of answers.

Beneath a mountain of lies and superstitions, he uncovers a chain of crimes leading to the most powerful figures in the country-influential enemies who will kill anyone in their way.

A memorable detective makes his debut in this gritty, mesmerizing thriller. Set amid the beauty and darkness of contemporary Africa, A Carrion Death is the first entry in an evocative new series cutting to the heart of today's Botswana-a modern democracy threatened by unstable neighbors, poachers, and diamond smugglers. Those trying to expose the corrupt ringleaders will find themselves fighting for their lives...


My Review: I want to smack the copywriter who created the promo copy above, and on the dust jacket of my library's hardcover. “Detective” Kubu is “Assistant Superintendent” Kubu. And there's something very uncomfortable to me about the “darkness” of modern Africa cited above. Just tin-eared phrasing, I'm sure. No one in publishing could be unconsciously playing with stereotypes. No no.

Mm. That's as may be. I found Kubu and his Botswana to be a welcome new angle on territory once owned, in the US market and mind, by McCall Smith's rather more twee Mma Ramotswe series. Kubu, the dangerous hippo of a detective in the series, is a Mozart-singing grocery hound, a kind of African Nero Wolfe-cum-Inspector Morse with a very nasty boss, a very appealing wife, and a large country to help police.

It's a nice debut novel about an interesting character with a lot of promise. The writing team, one Afrikaner and one Minnesotan, do a lot with their man's appetites for food, truth, justice, and facts. They're a bit less facile with the villains, using a lot of shortcuts...wealth equals evil...and failing to avail themselves of opportunities to work in some believable offsets to the faults.

The Superstitious Natives Who Are Right trope isn't one I like much, either, but I'll let that go for this book. If it happens again, there will be discussion of it then.

On balance, the series deserves another shot, and the sleuth a chance to grow and shine. Until next year, then. show less

A CARRION DEATH is a big story, filled with interesting characters, more than a few mysteries, and immersion for the reader into the country and culture of Botswana. It also gives us Assistant Superintendent David Bengu, known to all as Kubu, hippopotamus. Kubu is one of the best characters in fiction. He loves his wife, his country and its culture, wine, his job, his dog, and opera. He is a 21st century man, dealing with 21st century crimes that are the result of motives as old as mankind.

The story opens with the discovery of the partially eaten body of a white man by Kalahari game wardens. The condition of the body suggests that it has not only been attacked by animals acting according to their nature but also by humans acting against show more their’s. Missing teeth and severed limbs are the work of those who want to prevent this man from being identified.

As the story progresses so does the body count. People are missing and questions arise about identities. What was thought to be a murder might not be and what was determined to be an accident in nature was probably not. And at the end of it all is a villain motivated by at least four of the seven deadly sins: pride, anger, greed, and jealousy.

Michael Stanley (Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip) have written a saga. It is a mystery and a cultural education. The characters are people we want to meet again.

This is not the Botswana of the lady detective. show less

A human corpse in process of being devoured by hyenas is discovered by a couple of men on a scientific mission in the Botswana desert. They stay with the body overnight until detectives can arrive. Detective Bengu (whose nickname Kubu means hippopotamus, giving the readers an idea of his size) is assigned the case. His superior is also a likeable character. As Kubu investigates the identity of the man and his murder, all roads lead to the Botswana Cattle and Mining Company, perhaps the country's most important one. Power is shifting in the company to the younger generation, but there's something not quite right. Detective Kubu sticks with it when others might have given up what seemed an impossible case much earlier. I enjoyed this one show more for the difference in detecting style as well as the interesting setting. I listened to the rather lengthy audiobook version. show less

A human body that has been picked over by hyenas is found near a resort in a remote part of Botswana. There are few clues to the person’s identity other than it’s a white person. Assistant Superintendent David ‘Kubu’ Bengu needs to use all his ingenuity to find out who the person is and how they ended up in such a predicament. His investigations take him in many directions including to the most influential company in the country which incorporates diamond mines among its many interests.

The character of Kubu is one the outstanding features of this novel. He is a happily married, opera-loving, overweight chap whose childhood nickname of Kubu (meaning hippo) has stuck through to his adulthood. He is also a tenacious and clever show more detective who is willing to access help from whatever source he can find it. Although he does have a couple of odd quirks that crime writers love to give their protagonists (singing opera while driving across the country for example), Kubu is still a very natural and realistic character. He gets on well with his boss (who is neither a moron nor a monster) and even hosts a dinner party with his wife Joy for family and friends. Such things are perfectly normal in real life but stood out for me here as being the kind of thing you don’t see a lot of in crime fiction.

Given that I primarily read A Carrion Death as part of my fulfillment for the 2010 Global Challenge I was pleased it evoked such a sense of its location. The vast distances that Kubu has to travel in order to carry out his investigations and the remote desert setting for several key events acted together to give a strong sense of the relatively sparsely populated and land-locked country. Although in some ways it is quite different to the country depicted in Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series the importance given to all family relationships is a common trait between the two Botswanas. Here the family element is demonstrated repeatedly, most memorably for me when Kubu travels to South Africa and observes many beggars which he says would never happen in his country as people would be too ashamed to let even distant relations resort to such measures.

The book did suffer a little from ‘first book syndrome’ where every idea the authors had seemed to be thrown into the mix with the consequence that some of the threads were not terribly well thought through or relevant (the witchdoctor for example really added neither local flavour nor plot development). Tighter editing of these portions and the several repetitions of ‘the case to date’ segments might have made a dent in the book’s excessive length which would, in my humble opinion, have made it a better product. However the complex story does unfold well, including the time jumps in the first third of the novel, and the main thread is resolved in a manner in keeping with the rest of the story which is becoming something of a rarity these days.

Michael Stanley is a pseudonym for two authors, Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip, but however they apportion the writing tasks their collaboration appeared seamless to me. A Carrion Death is a thoroughly enjoyable romp of a tale and you’d be hard pressed not warm to the character of Kubu. I’m certainly looking forward to reading the second novel in the series soon. show less