The last thing Sebina expected when he turned up for work to start on a new pipeline in the Okavango Delta sands was finding human remains. Well actually, the last thing he expected was nine of them. He thought this project was going to help people grow crops, get water into the hot desert, help them to live - not to bury the dead.
Detective Kubu is desperate to solve this and prove to everyone he isn't just a rookie cop, and joins forces with Scottish pathologist Ian MacGregor once again to investigate the last resting place of the bushmen they've found but barely even scratch the surface of the mystery before the elder of a nearby village is murdered. The only leads they have are a woman accusing angered water spirits of the slaughters and decades old missing person reports.
It is supernatural retribution? Is it personal? Is it a conspiracy? Is it a serial killer? Or is it something larger than they could imagine? As accusations of all kinds start to fly and pressures mount not only from the police but across the world, Kubu and Co are running out of time to discover the secrets of the murdered Bushmen ... before they end up buried alongside them.
"He sat firm on the sand facing the sun. As it dropped below the horizon, red and purple slowly spread across the dust-laden air. When the sky turned dark and his ancestors started appearing in the sky, he closed his eyes."
The dynamic duo are back with an original, wickedly clever mystery - combining the grittiness of a classic detective novel with the stunning lyrical prose of a literary great. This prequel to the wonderful Detective Kubu Series is a strong and incisive tale entirely on its own, so can definitely be read as a standalone or as part of a collection.
The world building throughout is artistic - the authors quite literally paint us a picture, each brush stroke transporting us to bustling cities, tense dreary offices and the airy, sunlit and endless outdoors in painstaking detail. There's a magical realism in the way nature is portrayed, a reverence towards Mother Earth that invokes a sense of wonder and respect.
Each moment lands exactly on the beat, with perfect pacing. Every single gut-punch or quiet moment is delivered precisely, carefully allowing the reader to uncover a little bit more with every page and unravel a complex mystery along with Kubu and Co. It kept us wanting, but never for long enough to leave us disinterested, always leading the reader towards reading just one more chapter.
Even if you've not read the other books, Kubu and Ian become instantly familiar, with clear personalities and motivations. The way they work together on their investigation feels like a true-to-life crime procedural but without all the paperwork and lets us get a close look at how they think. Each character is given care and attention to ensure they are distinct and individual, and it's clear the authors put a lot of effort into reflecting the colloquial speech and dialects of the region in an authentic and immersive way.
A Deadly Covenant is a tapestry of crime, revenge, politics, love and human nature that was a pleasure to see woven together.
About the authors:
Comments
Post a Comment