About the authors: No, you did not read wrong and yes, there are two authors with regards to this book/series. Michael Stanley is the writing team of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. The pair have had many adventures together, including tracking lions at night, fighting bush fires on the Savuti plains in northern Botswana, surviving a charging elephant and losing their navigation maps while flying over the Kalahari. Sears lives in Johannesburg, South Africa. Trollip divides his time between South Africa and Minneapolis, Minnesota. To find out more, click on their website here.
Below is a picture of the crime-writing duo - Sears (L) and Trollip (cradling the cat):
First line in the book: The farewells had been said many years ago, so Goodluck hugged his old comrade and left without a word.
Synopsis: How can a man die twice? That's the question facing Detective 'Kubu' Bengu when a mutilated body is found at a tourist camp in northern Botswana. The corpse of Goodluck Tinubu displays the classic signs of a revenge killing. But when his fingerprints are analysed, Kubu makes a shocking discovery: Tinubu is already dead. He was slain in the Rhodesian war thirty years ago.
Kubu quickly realises that nothing at the camp is as it seems. As the guests are picked off one by one, time to stop the murderer is running out. With rumours of horrifying war crimes, the scent of a drug-smuggling trail and mounting pressure from his superiors to contend with, Kubu doesn't notice there is one door left unguarded - his own. And as he sets a trap to find the criminals, the hunters are closing in on him...
My take: As far as I know, the only other story set in Botswana is Alexander McCall Smith's and here I am reading the other pea in the pod to the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, albeit "with a dark edge and even darker underbelly" (Peter James).
Assistant superintendent, Kubu, (Setswana for 'hippopotamus' because of his big waistline and hearty appetite) works in the Botswana Criminal Investigation Department and is fond of food, wine and his wife, Joy. He reminds me very much of Shamini Flint's Inspector Singh - both men boast a commanding girth and like food. They work in a laid back environment with their subordinates and have someone higher-up to answer to even when they are working quite independently. Their books are pleasantly paced and not as edgy and dark as say Deon Meyer's.
As with McCall Smith and Deon Meyer's, I do not think you can read a novel from South Africa and not come across the local cultures and customs, its people and its beautiful landscape and not forgetting its diverse wildlife. These types of books are very much culturally inclined while enjoying a good light crime mystery. I have enjoyed reading this book in flight to Kuala Lumpur for my Christmas break but having said this, it would not make me read their debut (A Carrion Death) soon/next for the simple reason that I would like to explore other literary styles, a more hard-boiled style perhaps. It has been an enjoyable read though.
A Deadly Trade is published in the USA under the title The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu.
If you are searching for more South African crime novels to read, you can click on the Top 10 compiled by www.guardian.co.uk. Enjoy reading!
Rating: 2/5
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