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A Carrion Death (Detective Kubu, Bk 1)
A Carrion Death - Detective Kubu, Bk 1
Author: Michael Stanley
Smashed skull, snapped ribs, and a cloying smell of carrion. Leave the body for the hyenas to devour—no body, no case. — But when Kalahari game rangers stumble on a human corpse midmeal, it turns out the murder wasn't perfect after all. Enough evidence is left to suggest foul play. Detective David "Kubu" Bengu of the Botswana Criminal Invest...  more »
ISBN-13: 9780061252402
ISBN-10: 0061252409
Publication Date: 4/1/2008
Pages: 480
Rating:
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
 15

4 stars, based on 15 ratings
Publisher: Harper
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
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Top Member Book Reviews

Spuddie avatar reviewed A Carrion Death (Detective Kubu, Bk 1) on + 412 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4
#1 Detective David "Kubu" Bengu mystery set in Gaborone, Botswana. A half-eaten body is found near a waterhole in the Kalahari desert, a disgruntled hyena hovering close by, waiting to see if the humans are going to leave him to his lunch or not. Not! Assistant Superintendent Kubu's first task is to try to determine the identity of the body, which has no hands and thus no fingerprints. No white men have been reported missing, so this is proving quite difficult initially. After a time, however, Kubu has several different possibilities to fulfill the role, and he and his team remain interested when the coroner determines that the man (whoever he was) was murdered. Several different sub-plots to the main mystery seem to intersect with Botswana Cattle & Mining Company (the country's largest company) involved on several scales, and with several more dead bodies piling up along the way. Some of these sub-plots were fairly easy to figure out, as was the main baddie.

Detective Kubu (Kubu meaning "Hippopotamus") is a delightful character, a large man fond of good food and wine, proud of his heritage and country and family, and yet pragmatic in recognizing its faults, too. He sings off-key opera, is respectful of his parents, resists his wife's attempts at getting him to diet and delights in having the baboons from the nearby jungle jumping all over the outside of the police station!

While I delved right into the cultural details about the country, enjoyed getting to know Kubu, his wife Joy and the other secondary characters, and learned much about several pertinent social issues (diamond poaching and theft, alienation of the indigenous Kalahari Bushmen, etc) it seemed to me that at times the story was burdened with too many different issues and details. It felt crowded, as though the author were trying to cram in as much information and detail about the area, the culture, the food, the climate, the law enforcement system...etc...as possible. It was a lot to digest, and thus was not a book to be read quickly in a couple of sittings. Whether that is the result of the collaborative effort of the two people writing the book and overlapping on some things, or some other reason, I don't know. At any rate, despite it being somewhat bloated, I very much enjoyed the book and do look forward to the second in the series.
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cyndij avatar reviewed A Carrion Death (Detective Kubu, Bk 1) on + 1030 more book reviews
This is an excellent police procedural set in Botswana. Detective David Bengu , nicknamed "Kubu" (hippopotamus), is called in when a game warden finds a partially eaten corpse of a white man in the bush. It's not a lost tourist either. Before he knows it, more folks are dead and he keeps finding pointers to the biggest corporation in Botswana.
Family politics, smuggling, witch doctors and corruption all complicate the case but he has a good staff and his boss, while complaining all the while, has his back. The scenes with his family are charming. This is a nicely plotted mystery/thriller, not very dark, excellent character descriptions and a good sense of place and time. It did drag on towards the end - I think it should have ended about 30 pages before it actually did, but that's a small problem. Definitely worth reading and I'll be looking for the next in the series.
reviewed A Carrion Death (Detective Kubu, Bk 1) on + 385 more book reviews
Parts of a body and the stench of death are discovered by two game rangers in the desert of Botswana and create a mysteries for Botswaa CID Det. David "Kubu" Bengu. But all his means of gathering evidence and clues fail to resolve who is the man, why did he die and how did he get to where he was found.

But Kubu â which means hippo in the Setswana language â keeps picking at the case and comes across more mysteries happenings involving an oil company that is being inherited by a friend of his. Soon there are more bodies and details that just don't add up.

I enjoyed the story and thought the author did a masterful job of reflecting the setting, its people, culture and challenges. But there seemed to be far too many things going on that weren't part of the mystery making it a bit of an overly long.

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Detective Kubu  1 of 2

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