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Sundowner Ubuntu

by Anthony Bidulka

Series: Russell Quant (5)

MembersReviewsPopularityAverage ratingMentions
1074252,317 (3.77)44
A mother's pain. A million dollars. A missing son. Desperate to right old wrongs, a new client hires Russell Quant to locate her son, Matthew, lost to her for twenty years. But can money relieve remorse? Through good old-fashioned detective work, Russell peels away the layers of a carefully concealed life, grown from the seeds of traumatic childhood violence. Tracking Matthew's life from the schoolyard drug culture of a pleasant prairie city's underbelly to the stunning vistas, vibrant townships, and tinderbox safaris of Africa, Russell finds much more than he was looking for. Ever adept at making both friends and foes, Quant runs a gauntlet of uncharted danger as worlds collide. Thrust into the unfamiliar role of bad guy, stymied by seemingly insurmountable distrust and base fear, Russell cuts a blistering swath through covert threats and overt bullets. But as he searches for his Canadian needle in an African haystack, the brutality escalates. Confronting his own role in the cause and effect of scars and anger, retribution and revenge, Russell Quant faces a difficult question: What happens when the prodigal son resists the return?… (more)
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Showing 4 of 4
PI Russell Quant is approached by a woman who wants him to find her son, who had disappeared 20 years previously after being sent to a reformatory as a teenage delinquent.

Lots of twists and turns. Some of them I didn't see coming, some I did. It's been a while since I read the earlier books in the series, so my memory of some of the events referred to is a bit vague, which probably argues that I should read the rest of the series fairly soon. ( )
  Robertgreaves | Feb 28, 2022 |
One of the reasons I read this series is to figure out what the titles mean and I enjoy the mysteries as well. Russell Quant is an amusing fellow with a tongue-in-cheek approach to life and he takes on the case of a missing person that eventually takes him to South Africa, then to Botswana and finally Zambia with dragging footsteps following him all the way. The reader makes some connections long before Russell does in this particular case and I for one was less forgiving at the end.

The dragging footsteps belong to a vicious person who had no remorse as he brutally went about damaging people and needed more retribution that psychological help.

UNBUNTU - the africans believe that a community must live harmoniously together, with out the care and watchfulness of their neighbors they are nothing. If a young foolish boy steals something the community cannot let him get away with it, because that would be like stealing from every one, so the thing is always returned. If a bad thing is done to one person in the community by another a retribution is exacted in some way - unbuntu.

( )
  Condorena | Apr 2, 2013 |
Sundowner Ubuntu by Anthony Bidulka is another in his Russell Quant series and I still love this charming private detective in the wonderful town of Saskatoon. However, I didn't think this one of his better books in the series. I liked it, but wasn't wowed by it.

Russell is engaged by a woman asking him to find her estranged son of 20 years. With very little to go on, Russell soon finds himself building the links in the life of a boy who seemed to be the perfect son turned bad, got sent to prison, and then upon leaving it, seemed to disappear into thin air.

His investigations take him to South Africa ..... seemingly followed by a man with a limp. As his investigations lead him further and further away from his comfort level in civilization, he also leaves behind, a trail of people who suffer consequences for having spoken with him.

Bidulka does weave his genius in keeping one guessing till the very end though, and that's what makes his books so enjoyable. ( )
1 vote cameling | Mar 13, 2010 |
This is Russell Quant's fifth mystery outing.

It's not the best book in the series. It's exciting. It's got Russell in love at last. It's just not all there, exactly. Things don't hang together. Stuff that should be easy is hard for the character, because it needs to be for plot reasons, and that's just not a good sign for the future. Things that simply don't make sense are gaily skipped past, with seldom a nod at their improbability.

A hate crime committed twenty years ago has frightful consequences in the present day. Why? Dunno. So Russell can go to South Africa? Whatever.

I am concerned, Anthony Bidulka, because I see this as an incomplete book, maybe it should have been 60pp longer, and some extra time spent on motivating me to care about the criminal and also preparing me for the central love event which pretty much comes outta nowhere.

Because this is a very good idea, and it's not handled with the usual Bidulka verve. What went awry? Something did. And I will buy the next book, of course, but not the one after that if I feel I'm getting the same half-attention in that one too.

Recommended. Barely. ( )
  richardderus | Jun 3, 2009 |
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For our beloved Mocha & Bali, Missing you, Belly scratches and love, Tony and Herb
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A mother's pain. A million dollars. A missing son. Desperate to right old wrongs, a new client hires Russell Quant to locate her son, Matthew, lost to her for twenty years. But can money relieve remorse? Through good old-fashioned detective work, Russell peels away the layers of a carefully concealed life, grown from the seeds of traumatic childhood violence. Tracking Matthew's life from the schoolyard drug culture of a pleasant prairie city's underbelly to the stunning vistas, vibrant townships, and tinderbox safaris of Africa, Russell finds much more than he was looking for. Ever adept at making both friends and foes, Quant runs a gauntlet of uncharted danger as worlds collide. Thrust into the unfamiliar role of bad guy, stymied by seemingly insurmountable distrust and base fear, Russell cuts a blistering swath through covert threats and overt bullets. But as he searches for his Canadian needle in an African haystack, the brutality escalates. Confronting his own role in the cause and effect of scars and anger, retribution and revenge, Russell Quant faces a difficult question: What happens when the prodigal son resists the return?

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