Customer Reviews

A Carrion Death: Introducing Detective Kubu

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

[Three and a half stars] Perhaps because "Michael Stanley" is in fact a two-man team (Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip), their first joint venture, A CARRION DEATH, reads like two books in one: a mystery and a thriller combined. The two genres do not always fit well together, and the result is over-complex and over-long, but there is a great deal to enjoy along the way.

First, the mystery. A body is found near a watering-hole on a Botswanan game reserve, half-eaten by hyenas, all identifying features gone, and partially dismembered. But the hair is that of a white man, and other evidence suggests murder. Assistant Superintendent Kubu drives out from the capital, Gabarone, to investigate. Kubu, whose nickname means hippo, is a huge and hugely likeable man who sings along to opera in his car, has a knowledgeable appreciation of fine food and wine, loves his wife, honors his parents, and is as bright and persistent as they come. Although jaded readers will find echoes of other fictional detectives, the chapters directly involving Kubu, the police process, and his personal foibles are all interesting and enjoyable. So is the Botswana setting, recognizably similar to that of the Alexander McCall Smith series that began with THE NO. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY, almost equally warm, but less parochial and more recognizably part of the modern world.

The thriller element contains elements of boardroom drama, sexual intrigue, smuggling, backroom manipulation, and blackmail. Most of the characters are connected to the huge Botswana Cattle and Mining Company (BCMC), now being run by Cecil Hofmeyr until his nephew and niece, the twins Angus and Dianna, come into their inheritance on their thirtieth birthday in a few weeks' time. But Cecil has problems, whether stemming from financial irregularities, unsavory events in his past, or dubious practices at a diamond mine that he runs on the side. Although the first chapters introducing the BCMC story come after the discovery of the body, they actually antedate it. The first half of the book jumps backwards and forwards in time, with ramifying subplots and rising tensions, so that the reader is drawn into the game of guessing who the murdered man will turn out to be, which is both unusual and effective.

In some ways, the contrast between the two elements is also that between native and colonial. Kubu represents a class of African professionals who have benefited from educational opportunities to take leadership positions in the modern world, while remaining true to their traditions. BCMC, by contrast, is a company founded by foreign entrepreneurs, now attempting to redefine its place in an independent nation. Although never preachy, the dialectic between these elements is one of the strengths of the book.

Technically, however, this double approach leads to problems. Instead of learning information as the detective discovers it, as in a classic mystery, we also see things from the inside, including the private thoughts of many of the characters. As a result, some revelations become obvious to the reader long before the detective has worked them out -- including, I'm afraid, the basic mystery of the book! Perhaps in compensation, the authors introduce numerous false clues, resulting in an overlong book with more plot layers and shady characters than it can stand. In thriller style, the mayhem increases towards the end of the book, even as the mystery dissipates. Indeed there are so many deaths and disappearances, that the payoff of a normal mystery -- the final scene in which the evildoers are confronted with their crimes -- is no longer available, denying the reader one of the chief pleasures of the genre. Instead, the wrapping-up deals with relatively minor matters and is somewhat anticlimactic.

I gather that more Kubu books are on their way. Perhaps now that Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip have shown us what they can do, they will have no need to put so much into a single novel. Instead, I hope they will simplify their narrative and capitalize on the Botswanan setting, their engaging detective, and the strong sense of community that they build around him.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable mystery novel. Clues are left for you to ponder and puzzle over and if you pay good attention to the right ones, you might guess who the real villain is, my definition of a well written mystery. The ending does not come out of the blue, but rather, if you've been paying attention you will think, "I should have figured that out!" Detective Kubu is a great character, a realistic policeman with both strengths and weaknesses (especially for wine and food). Intertwined with an interesting mystery, of course, is an enjoyable tour of Botswana culture, politics and nature.

A white man's body stripped and left for the hyenas at a Kalahari water hole introduces a complex case for Botswana detective David "Kubu" Benga in Stanley's atmospheric debut.

The condition of the body - missing teeth, no clothes, missing arm - indicates that the killers may have wanted to hide the victim's identity. Kubu's investigation ruffles feathers among the white powers that be at the game preserve and the Botswana Cattle and Mining Company (BCMC), a conglomerate from colonial days that now has little to do with cattle and much to do with diamonds.

Kubu doesn't mind ruffling feathers though he's an easygoing fellow himself who enjoys good food and drink about as much as anyone could - hence the nickname Kubu - which means hippo. Viewpoint shifts between Kubu's investigation and various other characters - killers, schemers, business people, victims and innocents.

The case takes Kubu into boardrooms and across the country's dusty roads and open country. It gives us a look at Africa's complex economic structure, the diamond industry and a feel for the friction between modern and traditional customs.

Kubu is a modern man with a western-style house and habits who honors and respects his parents' conservative old-fashioned ways. He's an engaging character with a likable wife and an absorbing home life.

Stanley's first in the series is a window on a changing Africa, full of the sights, smells and tensions of a place with large disparities between rich and poor, black and white, traditional and modern.

The few problems with this promising debut concern length and pace - Stanley (pseudonym for writing team Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip) gives a bit too much away with his multiple viewpoints and it takes Kubu a bit too long to catch up. An immersing read, nonetheless.

There are detectives you develop an instant liking to - and there many you would never want to meet - in fiction or reality. David Bengu, "Kubu", central character of this attention-grabbing and highly entertaining tale, clearly belongs into the first category. A gentle giant whose nickname was well chosen by his school chum Angus. It means hippopotamus in Setswana, the language of the people of Botswana in Southern Africa. Kubu is the creation of a new South African writing team, Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip, two long-standing safari pals with a deep affinity to Botswana and African wild spaces. This is exciting, intricate and sometimes mind-bending stuff. Intended as the first in a series of novels, it is very easy to get hooked on Kubu.

In a game park in Southern Botswana, a hyena is feasting on her dinner. Vultures are circling high above indicating a lion kill or some such. Approaching the remote Kassami waterhole, conservation researcher Bongani and the assistant game warden initially don't see anything unusual. However, Bongani's astute observation reveals that the "prey" is human. Was the victim left for the animals to destroy any evidence of a possible murder? Kubu, the Assistant Superintendent of the Botswana Criminal Investigation Division is called upon to investigate: establish the identity of the body and the circumstances of his death. This quest is at the centre in what turns into a multi-layered story of love and hate, personal and corporate greed, intrigue and revenge.

At the centre of the action are the people running the Botswana Cattle and Mining Company, in particular one of their diamond mines. Angus Hofmeyr, Kubu's school-years friend, and his twin sister Dianna are to inherit controlling shares on their upcoming 30th birthday. Since their father's fatal accident some years before, their uncle Cecil has been running this lucrative, and for Botswana, important venture. He also happens to be a friend of Jacob Makabu, Kubu's boss. Complications abound as the story unfolds, more murders, related or not, increasingly upset even the level-headed detective. What is really going on? As he pursues an ever-increasing circle of witnesses and suspects, his well-trained observation skills comes to the fore. He is assisted by his new young friend Bongani, whose unusual connections introduce additional clues. While we as readers are sometimes led to believe that we are perhaps ahead of Kubu in deducing new associations, most of the time we have to accept that we, like the investigators, are being tricked into a dead end.

In smooth easy-going prose, the authors introduce us not only to believable, well-developed characters, they also familiarize us with the natural beauty of Botswana and its fragility. There are hints of McCall Smith's Botwana and of the traditional ways of life encapsulated in Mma Ramotswe, the No 1 Lady's Detective. Yet, Botswana reality as described here is not so easy-going and gentle. Michael Stanley's understanding of the natural environment, the cultures and traditions, as well as of the political issues of today adds authenticity to the settings. (Friederike Knabe)

He's a good-sized man, is David Bengu. Jokingly referred to - even by himself - as " Kubu" [hippo in Setswana], there's more to David than bulk. Referring to him as a "jolly fat bloke" would be a mistake. He's rather more like the hyena found feasting on the remants of a human corpse near a stream-bed. Confronted with a mystery, he works at it with dogged ["hyenaed"?] persistence until he's obtained every relevant piece of information. The biggest mystery in this case is that the corpse was a white man. And nobody's been reported missing from the white population around Gaborone. For a copper like David Bengu, such circumstances demand explanations and solutions.

Taught to observe as a child by a Kalahari Bushman, "Kubu" has a fine sense for detail. The circumstances surrounding the mysterious corpse turn out to be only the first in a string. Even as Assistant Superintendent Bengu is sifting through the early items, new ones begin to pile up. And that's not even counting the corpses. Soon, Bengu finds himself attempting to unravel a set of intricate and deeply puzzling events. The story goes far beyond a lonely skeleton as Kubu is swept up in international corporate plots in the diamond mining business. Diamond mining plays a major role in Botswana's economy as Bengu's boss, Director Mabaku, never tires of reminding him. The local extraction firm is run by Cecil Hofmeyr, whose twin nephew and niece, Angus and Dianna, will be soon taking over. The Board Meeting announcing the handover proves a key pivot point in a twisted and convoluted plot. A side link here is that Angus and Kubu were school-mates. In fact, it was Angus who dubbed David "kubu" in admiring jest.

"Twisted" and "convoluted" here are not a negative assessment of this story. This pair of authors ["Michael Stanley" is two people] has crafted an immensely captivating tale. There are almost countless threads to be tracked as the story unfolds, but the authors keep the reader informed just enough to provoke continued interest. While there are characters who are never fully explained, they are depicted with clarity. None of them fails any plausibility test, although the "African" conditions may be alien to some readers. Through it all "Michael Stanley" is able to convey the beauty of Botswana, even to Bengu's sense of discomfort when his desert background is forced to cope with South Africa's more humid coastal area. We are given the geology underlying diamond mining, but it's hardly a classroom lecture. The reader is also introduced to the spiritual traditions of Africa, which even an education in science cannot eradicate.

In short, this is a superb introduction of a new character by new authors. They have left unfulfilled circumstances in the book. Lacking a "clean" ending, it's clear that Kubu will have much to cope with in future stories. While everything in this tale is clear, nothing in it is simple. It is not for the lazy reader, but offers many challenges whether or not you are a "mystery" fan - an this reviewer is not among that number. Inevitably, there will be comparisons with Alexander McCall Smith's books on Precious Ramotswe. Don't bother, they aren't even close. But it's to be hoped that Kubu Bengu will endure at least as long. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Carrion Death was a pleasure from beginning to end. Detective Kubu is the hard-hitting mirror of Mma Precious Ramotswe in Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency Series. Both, though, share a "traditional" build and a fierce love of Botswana.

A well-written plot is accompanied by the feeling that you're privy to the real Africa, not the oft-seen touristy Africa of the Travel channel. Solid research accompanied by the author's obvious encyclopedic knowledge of southern Africa makes the story come alive.

I can't wait for the next book in the series!

This is a great first novel. The author(s) have done their homework well and made Botswana real to the reader. Detective Kubu is a man who enjoys good food and wine, loves his wife and parents. I liked him from the first moment. His tenacity and insights in solving the crime make for a good read. All the characters are sensibly drawn and the larger political issues of Southern Africa are relevant to the story. I look forward to many more Kubu adventures.

Michael Stanley is the collective name for the writing team of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. Sears and Trollip have shared a number of exotic adventures together, with Sears living in Johannesburg, South Africa and Trollip dividing his time between Minneapolis, Minnesota and South Africa. They write seamlessly as one and have crafted an engrossing, even enchanting, mystery.

A CARRION DEATH revolves around Detective Kubu. "Kubu" is not David Bengu's given name; rather, it is a nickname bestowed upon him at school. A "kubu" is the Setswana term for "hippopotamus," and Bengu, tipping the scales at 300 pounds, resembles his namesake, despite the best efforts of his loving wife, Joy, to put him on a diet. We find out that a great deal of Kubu's time is spent eating one meal or thinking about his next. His appetite for food is matched, though not exceeded, by his tenaciousness for his work. Kubu, we discover in due course, is an assistant superintendent of police detectives for the Botswana Criminal Investigation Department. He answers to Jacob Mabaku, the somewhat dyspeptic director of the department, a rigid man who nonetheless knows when to occasionally bend.

The book jumps out of a pretty gruesome block right at the beginning when an ecologist and a camp ranger happen upon the remains of a human body just as a hyena is finishing off the last few bites. The location is remote, and some tire tracks lead to and from the corpse. It has obviously been dumped, but the lack of clothing or other markings, aside from a couple of oddly broken and healed bones, make identification difficult. The investigation calls to Kubu, who in turn slowly but surely finds that the trail seems to lead back to the Botswana Cattle and Mining Company (BCMC), which is much more interested in mining --- diamonds, that is --- than in cattle. Aron Frankental, a geologist at a mine associated with BCMC, went missing just after he reported what he believed to be a shortage of diamonds from the mine.

Kubu has a bit of a personal interest in the case because Angus Hofmeyr, whose family founded BCMC, is scheduled to inherit control of the company on his 30th birthday. Angus and Kubu were not just friends at school; indeed, it was Angus who first christened Bengu and "Kubu." Angus's twin sister, Dianna, is to inherit additional interest in BCMC, but she seems just a tad more ambitious than that, at least when her attention is not diverted by her vociferous sexual appetite and her attraction to Jason Ferraz, who manages the mine where Frankental disappeared. Of course, Cecil Hofmeyr, who founded BCMC with his brother, Angus and Dianna's father, may have an idea or two about hanging on to his own power as well. He has some secrets of his own, however, that just may bring him down.

Kubu walks into this swirling intrigue like a hippo into a china shop, and before long he's attempting to solve a number of murders, in addition to the one that fed a starving hyena. He is good-natured and loves his job, so that he's thinking about the murders when his mind isn't on eating. He looks and, more importantly, listens, and manages to solve the mystery of the murdered and abandoned body. Not everything is resolved neatly, though. Stanley leaves enough loose threads dangling and introduces enough interesting secondary characters to make it obvious that this book is to be the first of what hopefully will be a number of Inspector Kubu novels to come.

A CARRION DEATH is full of exotic locales, compelling characters and mind-bending mysteries. Even if you should puzzle out what has taken place, it's thoroughly entertaining to watch how Kubu puts things together even as he contemplates that all-important next feeding. You will be intrigued, and charmed, from page to page.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

A Carrion of Death introduces readers to Detective David "Kubu" Bengu, Assistant Superintendent in the Botswana Criminal Investigation Department. Bengu was given the nickname Kubu, which means hippopotamus in Setswana, by a school chum because of his physique. However, the name is appropriate in other ways as well. As with the hippopotamus, Kubu's outward appearance is a bit deceptive. While the hippopotamus appears to be a gentle giant lying in the river, it is in reality ill tempered and move with considerable speed to get what it is after. To those who don't know better, Kubu appears to be much more interested in his next meal or Steelworks drink than the case at hand. They would be wrong. While Kubu is indeed fond of his food and drink, his mind is always working on the smallest of details.

There are two main threads in the complex plot of the book In the first, we meet Kubu when he is called in to investigate the death of a half eaten human body found near a watering hole by game wardens. When it is determined that the body is that of a white person, there is much concern that the death will hurt the all important tourist trade. That concern grows when it becomes apparent that the person was murdered. The second thread revolves around a family drama being played out over the control of Botswana's largest company, Botswana Cattle and Mining Company (BCMC). When Roland Hofmeyr was killed in a plane crash, the running of the company was left to his brother Cecil until Roland's children, Dianna and Angus, turned 30. They have reached that age, but Cecil is desperate to maintain control. Through this part of the story readers get an fascinating look into the diamond trade, both legal and illegal in Africa today. The author has woven these two seemingly unrelated threads together into an exceptionally fine mystery.

A Carrion of Death is a wonderful way to take a mini vacation to Africa. There is a sense of place that just settles over the reader allowing the reader to experience the rhythms of Botswana-both new and old. Kubu and his wife live in the city of Gaborone, but Kubu's parents still live in a small village where electrical power is sporadic at best, and indoor plumbing is not yet the standard. While Kubu is a very modern policeman, the local witch doctor also plays an important role in this book.

At the beginning of the book, a map and a list of characters is included. At the end there is a glossary of terms. Each of these additions is an appreciated gift to the reader. As several characters have similar names, having the list at the beginning makes it easy for the reader to flip back and clarify who someone is. Likewise with the map and glossary. It was nice to be able to quickly check on where something occurred or what something is. Each was a nice finishing touch to a terrific book.

I found it very good until the last sixty pages or so. As some have said, it continued on after i pretty much knew the answers . and it never answered some questions--as if it was some cheap trick on the authors' part to pique your interest but without ever having to tie it in.
but it was an entertaining book for the most part and not a total bust in the mystery solved department.