Customer Reviews

A Beautiful Place to Die: A Novel (Detective Emmanuel Cooper)

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

When I first picked this book I had no idea what it was about or what to expect. Then after a few pages I felt I had fallen into a typical pulp mystery/detective novel only set in exotic south africa.
Then after several chapters I realized I had definitely fell into a pulp mystery/detective novel and it was sort of typical but overall it was an excellent read and I could barely put it down. I was late getting to work a couple of times because of this book.
For the most part its pretty devoid of any 'cheese' with a small exception in the end where the bad guys are lured away by the smell of food (this does give any part of the book away, it was a cheesy moment and quite predicatable).
The most fascinating part for me was learning a bit of what it was like living in apartheid south africa and how horrible it was. The injustice of it all makes you mad as you read through to the end. You keep waiting for justice to be served but then you must remember that this is based on truth and south africa had no real justice.
Based on any kind of description for this book I would most likely have not chosen it so thank goodness it had a great cover and title because having read it I am glad to own it and recommend it heartily.

This is an unusual story of South Africa, apartheid, tragedy, love, and friendship. It begins with a murder and ends with the solution, which will not see daylight. The book deals with the fallout of the apartheid forced by law, which has separated friends, forced families to send their children to cities where they can pass for white, and created situations where a man and wife pretend that the couple is master and servant in order to stay together.

The man killed is the Chief of the police, honored, and considered to be a fair but very stern and straight laced man. As the policeman sent from a much larger city to solve the case begins investigating, he is shoved aside by government police who feel that it was a communist plot. He's given the task of discovering who had been molesting young black women. By taking on the case, he uncovers a very nasty, covered up and white washed situation.

I think anyone would really like this book. It can be disturbing in spots, but rings true.

I loved this book and could not put it down. Ms. Nunn wraps a page turning detective novel inside a beautifully written and painful description of life under apartheid. With amazing technical skill, she weaves the plot into the fabric of the complex racial relationships of South Africa and the stunning beauty of the land.

As I finished the book, my only thought was, what happens to Detective Emmanuel Cooper next?

I can't wait for the next installment.

"A Beautiful Place to Die" is a gripping story of murder, violence, and racial segregation set in South Africa in 1952. Detective Emmanuelle Cooper is sent to Jacob's Rest investigate the murder of an Afrikaner Police Captain, only to have control over the investigation taken out of his hands by two goons from the Security Branch.

The character of Cooper was sympathetic, particularly when he faces the challenge of continuing his investigation "in secret" after the Security Branch takes over. But I found myself liking the Zulu "sidekick" Shabalala more. He was secretive and determined to protect the honor of the murdered captain, and caught in the middle of the investigation.
The story moves quickly, and once started, it is hard to put it down. The dismal and heart-wrenching impact of Apartheid and racial segregation is beautifully drawn as you get to know the characters. The Nunn skillfully reveals the complete artificiality of segregation in the difficulties faced by all the characters, whether they are black, white or mixed. Exactly how "mixed" is "mixed"? How should you be classified if you have blond hair and blue eyes and everyone thinks you are white?

I'm not sure whether this was deliberate or not, but I often found myself confused and unable to tell which characters fell into which racial category. One could argue that this was deliberate and a very telling way for the author to show just how arbitrary and artificial the categories are. Or not. I did have my doubts because of a few flaws.

The characters were somewhat clichéd, particularly the two, thick-necked goons from the Security Branch and the wife of the murdered captain. Thankfully, the head goon, Piet, was marginally intelligent and therefore gave Cooper a bit of a run for his money on the investigation. I was saddened to see the Jewish character, Zweigman, portrayed as almost a pure cliché.

My biggest problem, though, developed at the beginning of chapter 7. We know Cooper was in the war and suffered like all the other men who fought in WWII. But what I objected to was the sudden and gratuitous inclusion of a voice in Cooper's head at this point in the story.

And not just any voice, but a Scottish voice. Since I'm a huge fan of the Inspector Ian Rutledge stories created by the writing team, Charles Todd, this sudden character development gave me serious pause. Inspector Rutledge is severely shell-shocked in WWI and is trying to regain a normal life in the face of mental instability that takes the form of hearing the voice of a dead Scotsman in his head.

Deja vu?

Was this sudden trait of Cooper's lifted directly from the series by Charles Todd? If not, Does Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder always results in hearing a Scottish voice in your head? I would never have suspected the link between Scottish voices and stress disorders.

Anyway, this character trait in Cooper seemed sudden and unnecessary (in my opinion) and developed a third of the way through the book. Perhaps the author felt Cooper needed a vulnerable side, I don't really know, but the appearance of "The Voice" did nothing except irritate me. It also had the unfortunate side-effect of making me more critical of the book than I might otherwise have been.

If I had never read any of Todd's books, I would have found this a strange thing to "tack on" to Cooper at the 1/3 mark, but I probably wouldn't have been so aggravated by it. As it was, this sudden left turn made me look a little harder at the other characters, which was unfortunate.

On the whole, though, the book really does deliver on the crime novel. There are a number of interesting twists and it moves very quickly. Despite the odd quirk of the Scottish voice, Cooper is sympathetic and the reader wants him to solve the murder and prove how cruelly stupid the Security Branch really is. The tension between the characters is palpable. It is a vivid portrayal of a difficult period in history and should be the start of an interesting series featuring Cooper in a search for Justice in a land divided and torn by the lack of it.

A Beautiful Place to Die is a thought provoking story and pleasant to read. I enjoy novels when they have intellectual substance while providing an entertaining experience. Ms. Nunn's breakthrough novel ticked all the boxes for me. She is an author to watch. I spent 22 years studying in school and prefer educational enrichment at this point to be pleasurable. It is an interesting, fun, and intelligent novel.

"A Beautiful Place to Die" is, when broken down to its core, a murder mystery - Sgt. Detective Emmanual Cooper is called to the small town of Jacobs Rest in Southwest Africa on what is believed to be a hoax call, only to discover the body of a white man - the police Captain, no less - floating in the river. Left to cope on his own, being driven out of the case by men from Security Branch who are no better than thugs, he nonetheless is driven to solve this mystery. Set in the 1950s, Cooper's task is made even more difficult due to the newly-restrictive laws of apartheid.

With characters ranging from a Zulu Constable to a Jewish shop-keeper (who is also a doctor), this book will grip you from the start and not let you go. The characters are all highly developed - although in many cases their pasts remain a mystery, there are clues to their past sprinkled throughout the text - and it is intriguing to watch the drama unfold.

While some of the situations are uncomfortable, overall this is a very well-written, well-researched book. Don't miss it.

Set in South Africa, "A Beautiful Place to Die" is a mystery which weaves in and ultimately becomes tangled in the intricacies of race relations during Apartheid.

One of the aspects of the book that I especially appreciated was Malla Nunn's skill at setting the pace for the reader. When I started out the pace was gentle and the story subtly enticing; but by the time I reached chapter 14 there is no way I could put the book down.

At first I had some issues with some of the concluding details (who did what and why). I actually thought that Pretorius' murderer should have been someone else.

After some thought, I am satisfied with how all the loose ends were pulled together. The ending Nunn selected highlighted the irony that a judgment system based upon the superficial (skin color alone) has such significant influence on our individual and collective humanity that it ultimately corrupts the soul, perverts the emotions, and poisons the intellect.