DP54Cover - Deadly Pleasures

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Deadly Pleasures
SOUTHERN
SOUTHERN
AFRICA
AFRICA
A A Crime Crime Setting Setting on
on
the the Rise
Rise
by by Jeff Jeff Popple
Popple
Traditionally, Southern Africa has not been a favoured
locale for crime fiction. There are a few exceptions.
James McClure, often referred to as the “father of
South African crime fiction,” provided some hard-hitting
police novels in the 1970s, which mixed detection with
scorching commentary on apartheid in South Africa, and
Wessel Ebersohn wrote a handful of evocative mysteries in
the early 1980s featuring the eccentric prison psychiatrist
Yudel Gordon. Well-regarded veteran June Drummond,
who lives in Durban, Australia also wrote a handful of
Southern African crime novels which cast a jaundiced eye
on apartheid, although she is far better known for her
whodunits set in England. Otherwise there have been few
Southern African crime novelists or novels with that setting,
although that now seems set to change.
Hardboiled South African writer Deon Meyer is
finally receiving the international attention he deserves as
evidenced by all of the rave reviews of his books in DP,
while Alexander McCall Smith’s quirky tales about Botswana
private detective Precious Ramotswe have charmed huge
numbers of readers around the world. Cape Town author
Mike Nicol (PAYBACK) is also generating very favourable
reviews (but his work is hard to find) , and American
Suzanne Arruda has successfully combined romance and
historical crime with her series about Jade del Cameron.
Also coming out later this year in Australia is A
BEAUTIFUL PLACE TO DIE (Macmillan, $A32.99,
September) by Malla Nunn, a Swaziland expatriate who
now lives in Western Australia. Set in 1950s South Africa,
it features Johannesburg police detective Emmanuel Cooper
who is sent to the tiny backwater of Jacob’s Rest to
investigate the brutal murder of a police captain.
Australian Tony Park has also been building up a
steady following with his series of adventure novels set in
Africa. His latest, SILENT PREDATOR (Macmillan,
$A32.99), is probably his best to date and is an exciting
and well-constructed thriller that moves smoothly between
South Africa, Mozambique and London.
When British Assistant Minister for Defence, Robert
Greeves, is kidnapped from a luxury private safari
lodge in Kruger National Park by a well-organised band of
terrorists, his protection officer, Detective Tom Furey,
comes under suspicion for allowing
it to happen. Vowing not
to stop until he finds Greeves,
Furey embarks on a desperate
pursuit of the terrorists through
the National Park to the coastal
waters of Mozambique. Assisted
by his South African counterpart,
the attractive widow Sannie
Van Rensburg, Furey comes to
find, however, that the truth Jeff Popple
behind the kidnapping lies back
in London.
This is a very enjoyable piece of thriller fiction.
The action is frequent and believable, and the story winds
its way through some good twists and turns.
Park knows how to tell a good story, but also
manages to highlight, in an even-handed way, several
social issues confronting modern South Africa and
Mozambique, including the high rate of violent crime, the
effects of corruption and the debilitating effects of the
AIDS epidemic.
A very good read and probably the best thriller I
have read by an Australian since Sandy McCutcheon’s
THE COBBLER’S APPRENTICE.
Also very enjoyable is the debut African mystery
by Michael Stanley (the writing team of Michael Sears and
Stanley Trollip) , A CARRION DEATH (Harper, $23.95;
Headline, £11.99). Rating: A Set in modern Botswana,
a land where globalism and witchdoctors collide, A CAR-
RION DEATH is an impressive murder mystery with a
great detective in the form of Assistant Superintendent
David Bengu of the Botswana police. Nicknamed Kubu,
the Setswana word for hippopotamus, Bengu is a big man
with an immense appetite and an easy-going manner.
Despite his size, Bengu’s approach to crime-solving is
delicate and cerebral and his investigation into the discovery
of a half-eaten body in a waterhole near a local resort
takes the reader on an entertaining journey through
Botswana.
The fluid writing and fascinating descriptions of
the Botswana countryside, and its people, will keep most
readers happily turning the pages. Even the simplest
interactions, such as Bengu’s visit to his parents, are full of
interest and totally engaging. The criminal elements are
also well handled and the multiple viewpoints employed by
Stanley add to the mounting suspense.
Also available for those who are attracted to this
locale, are the works of Richard Kunzmann whose first
novel BLOODY HARVESTS (St. Martin’s Minotaur,
$24.95; Macmillan, £10.99) was nominated for the CWA
2005 Creasy Memorial Dagger Award (Best First Novel).
He has followed that with SALAMANDER COTTON (St.
Martin’s Minotaur, $24.95; Macmillan, £10.99 ) in which
a wealthy, ex-mining boss has been found burned to death
in his home. The third Mason/Tshabalala mystery, DEAD-
END ROAD (Macmillan, £11.99) is already out in England
and will be soon in the U.S.