Facets of Death by Michael Stanley

Facets of Death is the ideal holiday reading for a UK staycation, being full of African sunlight. Botswana is the setting for Michael Stanley’s Detective Kubu series, to which this is a prequel. The ingenious plot is in the style of a police procedural, enhanced by spectacularly dramatic events and a wealth of intriguing characters. The crimes described are so original, mind-bending and twisty it is impossible to tell the innocent from the guilty until the grand finale.

Recruited straight from university to Botswana’s CID, David ‘Kubu’ Bengu has raised his colleagues’ suspicions with his meteoric rise within the department, and he has a lot to prove.

When the story opens Bengu, fresh out of university, has just arrived for his first day of work with the Criminal Investigation Department. His clothes are ‘already damp with sweat - not unusual for a man of his size in a hot climate’. This description gives an early hint of his larger than life character. The reader guesses he will be no more comfortable with conventional methods of detective work than he is with office suits designed for colder climates.

Bengu has been fast-tracked into the post of Detective Sergeant, skipping the conventional uniformed apprenticeship. All his new colleagues are watching him and wondering how he will shape up. A few of them actively hope he will fail, but this does not disturb the fledgling detective, because his attitude to life is unswervingly upbeat. He even invites everyone to call him by his school nickname, Kubu, which is the Setswana word for hippopotamus. Most people would be glad to leave this moniker behind, but Bengu admires the iconic beast and is happy to be linked with it. This is a good example of his ability to find the positives in any situation.

When the richest diamond mine in the world is robbed of 100,000 carats worth of gems, and the thieves are found, executed, Kubu leaps at the chance to prove himself. First he must find the diamonds – and it seems that a witch doctor and his son have a part to play.

On his first day as a detective, Kubu is presented with not one, but two opportunities to prove himself. Firstly, he must solve the problem of baggage theft from the local airway, which has been going on without the losses registering on the tracking system. This poses a cracker of a puzzle, even for someone with Kubu’s genius for lateral thinking. Secondly, he has to help track down a gang of murderous thieves who have somehow defeated the mine’s security systems and made away with a shipment of diamonds. In order to catch these cunning criminals, Kubu has to use his knowledge of witch doctors and their methods.

Does this young detective have the skill and integrity to engineer an international trap? Or could it cost him everything?

Detective Kubu Bengu has a very likeable personality. Although he knows he is outstandingly intelligent, he does not let this make him arrogant. His warm, mutually respectful relationship with his parents grounds and supports him. When he loses his heart to Joy, his shyness and modesty are touching. Nevertheless, in spite of his sensitivity and tender heart, Kubu turns out to be a brave and determined warrior in the war against crime.

PUBLICATION DATE: 29 APRIL 2021 | ORENDA BOOKS | PAPERBACK ORIGINAL | £8.99