"The unmatched beauty, spirit, and mystery of Africa never fails to come to life in Michael Stanley's award-winning Botswana-based Detective 'Kubu' series. A Deadly Covenant is an irresistible page-turner and a powerful contribution to the Kubu saga." – Jeffrey Siger, author of the Andreas Kaldis series
This is the eighth book in the Detective Kubu series and the second with him as a young man.
While building a pipeline near the Okavango Delta, a contractor unearths the skeleton of a long-dead Bushman. Kubu and Scottish pathologist, Ian MacGregor, are sent to investigate, and MacGregor discovers eight more skeletons.
Then an elder of the nearby village is murdered at his home. The local police believe it was a robbery, but Kubu thinks otherwise. So does a strange woman who claims it was an angry river spirit. The situation gets more confusing when the strange woman is found dead, apparently killed by a crocodile.
Assistant Superintendent Mabaku joins them as accusations of corruption are leveled and international outrage builds over the massacre of the Bushman families. But how do the recent murders link to the dead Bushmen, if at all? As Kubu and his colleagues investigate, they uncover a deadly covenant and begin to fear that their own lives may be in danger.
The young Kubu’s second big case mixes local mythology and tradition with smart police work to make for a satisfyingly immersive mystery that begs resolution until the last, unpredictable moment.
Michael Stanley is the writing name of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. Both natives of Africa, we have traveled regularly together to Botswana and Zimbabwe over the past twenty years to experience the country with its wide diversity and interesting peoples. Our books reflect the authentic Africa of the 21st century: not merely the politically unstable, desperately poor Africa of the nightly news, but also the emotional conflicts of people with one foot in traditional culture and the other in Western-instigated globalism. The new Africa is not a safari jungle, but a collection of diverse groups and nations struggling to find their way in a rapidly changing context.
We enjoy both a local and transglobal collaboration, mainly via e-mail and Skype. Michael lives in Knysna, South Africa; Stanley spends half the year in coastal South Africa and half in Minnesota.
Our Botswana thrillers are set around the smart and huge Detective Kubu of the CID. Don't get in his way. His nickname means Hippo!
For more about us, our books and Botswana, see http://www.