Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Everything is beautiful, in its own way." Old song, April 13, 2010
It is 1952 and the new apartheid laws have gone into effect in South Africa, separating white from black and mixed race people. Detective Emmanuel Cooper, an Englishman who served in WWII, and still has nighmares about the horrors he's seen, is summoned to the scene of the murder.
He views the body of a white police captain. The murdered man was Captain Pretorius and three of his sons are standing by. They are furious that the detective division only sent one man, to investigate the death of a murdered police captain. Cooper tries to calm them down, saying that the information was unclear and they hadn't been informed of the victim's race, sex or occupation.
Cooper also meets Constable Samuel Shabalala. Shabalala is a tall, powerful man and Cooper can see that he's the one who would probably know the most but since he is black, he had to wait until he was called forward to the murder scene.
When Cooper finishes viewing the body and the scene of the murder, he goes to the police station in this small town of Jacob's Rest. The town is located on the Mozambique and South Africa border. Cooper calls his boss and asks for reinforcements but is informed that there aren't any. In fact, the powerful Security Branch will be taking the case over. They are goal minded to flush out any black communist radicals and look for political solutions. Cooper is instructed to be his superior's eyes in the field and continue his own investigation. Find the murderer, regardless of political expediency.
What Cooper finds is that Captain Pretorius had his own secrets and wasn't the ideal man that everyone thought. He had strained relationships with black and colored residents and ruled the town with his sons, without asking for permission for what he wanted.
Malla Nunn has written a wonderfully complex story about a time that many readers need a refresher course to remember the details. Cooper is a powerful character who shows determination, inteligence and empathy.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Shadows & secrets, January 23, 2010
The year is 1952, the setting far out on the veldt in South Africa. The new segregation laws are just taking effect, and there are a thousand ways people of every race can get into terrible trouble with the authorities.
Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper arrives from Johannesburg in the town of Jacob's Rest to investigate the alleged murder of a white police captain. He has no backup because his boss thinks the garbled call for help might be a hoax.
The body in the river leaves no doubt that the case is real. As Cooper begins to suspect that the excellent captain had a shadow life - an unsavory secret that invited murder - members of the dread Security Branch appear on the scene. They want the killer to be a Red agitator, a native who can be strung up as an example to other rebels.
Cooper is surrounded on all sides by brutal racists who don't like the direction he's taking. His only allies are a Zulu constable who won't talk, an old Jewish doctor who doctors only in secret - and a white constable, a mere boy, dumber than a box of rocks.
Cooper speaks Zulu, is good at solving cases and can outrun any cop or criminal in Jo'burg. But in a country in the grip of political madness, he's just barely holding onto his own sanity. The war and his own past troubles have left deep scars.
I'm glad that Malla Nunn, an award-winning filmmaker born in Swaziland, decided to try her hand at a novel. She paints an amazing picture of South Africa in the darkest days of its history. And her detective displays an appealing mix of humanity and low-key heroism.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Film Maker's Eye on the Printed Page, January 18, 2009
This review is from: A Beautiful Place to Die: A Novel (Detective Emmanuel Cooper) (Hardcover)
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
A film maker takes a visual approach to a story. A novelist takes a verbal one. Sometimes novelists decide that they could be movie makers, and try with a variety of success. More rarely a film maker will try a hand at the novel, and Malla Nunn is a film maker -- an award winning one.
What has happened with A Beutiful Place to Die is that the visual thought process has been brilliantly well transmitted to the written page. Here we find a painting of the South Africa of 1951 where Apartheid was at its most terrible. This was more than 25 years before P.K. Botha became State President, and gently introduced some slightly less repressive interpretations to that law. It was over 40 years before Nelson Mandela became the first fully representative President of the country, and directed the dismantling of Apartheid.
Malla Nunn was born in Swaziland during the time of Apartheid's greatest power, and her exposure to the artificial segregation of the races is clearly felt throughout this novel. She left the South African region in the 1970s, and now resides in Australia, but despite that the reader may feel the powerful loathing that she feels towards the injustices of the time.
She has cleverly wrapped these feelings into a story of murder and mystery that embraces the whole spectrum of the races of the time, in a small town called Jacob's Rest. The protagonist is a Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper of the Cape Police Force. The antagonists include a "racially pure" Afrikaner family, and the S.S.-like Special Police force who consider themselves free to function above the law.
Her film-maker's eye comes through in the beautifully dressed "sets" in which the various scenes take place. She never reveals too much, yet by two thirds of the book's passing the reader gets a strong suspicion about "who done it". Still she builds suspense upon suspense to a powerful climax.
Some novels are plot driven, and some are character driven -- this novel is a brilliantly clever blending of both approaches. Watch for more from this author. I sense a great future for her.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
