Nairobi Heat in Around the World in 80 Books

Sep 22, 2011 Beverly rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Heading: Greed, Trickery, and Justice

The call came at 2 AM from the police chief of Madison, Wisconsin - a murder had been committed in the wealthy exclusive enclave of Maple Bluff. Detective Ishmael Fofona, an African-American on the “mostly white police force” in an “extremely white town,” knew that if the call came directly from the police chief there had to be a political angle to the crime. An unidentified beautiful blonde woman is found dead on the front steps of the home of Joshua Hakizim Heading: Greed, Trickery, and Justice

The call came at 2 AM from the police chief of Madison, Wisconsin - a murder had been committed in the wealthy exclusive enclave of Maple Bluff. Detective Ishmael Fofona, an African-American on the “mostly white police force” in an “extremely white town,” knew that if the call came directly from the police chief there had to be a political angle to the crime. An unidentified beautiful blonde woman is found dead on the front steps of the home of Joshua Hakiziman, an African professor who is world-famous for saving hundreds of people from the Rwandan genocide, so this will be the news event of the year and resolving this crime could be a career-defining event. Joshua does not know the girl, and has an air-tight alibi. The police are stumped until Ishmael receives an anonymous call stating that if he wants to know the truth he needs to go to the source – Nairobi. In the gritty thriller, Nairobi Heat by Mukoma wa Ngugi, Ishmael will take a journey to Africa; a place he never gave much thought about, to find justice for an unknown woman, and finds out how volatile, illusive and contradictory justice can be.

Nairobi Heat could have been an ordinary detective novel but due to the author’s storytelling abilities and his lyrical wordsmithing the reader is provided with a fast-paced complex thriller of a mystery. Ishmael is the narrator of the story and it is through his eyes as an African-American the nuances of the Kenyan culture is explored. One of my favorite passages in the book is:
“Soon enough I found myself outside the airport in what felt like a market - a wall of people shouting and heckling, selling newspapers, phone cards, even boiled eggs. But it wasn’t the people that stopped me in my tracks, it was the heat. The heat made New Orleans on a hot summer day feel like spring. Humid, thick and salty to taste, that was Nairobi heat.”
But, luckily for Ishmael he is paired up with O, a Nairobi detective. As the pair of detectives search for the truth, the reader is shown how crime and crime detection is different in a particular country. As in a crime story there are good guys and bad guys, but the well-developed characters all come across as individuals with their own complexities. It is through these characters that the larger issues of genocide, political corruption, NGOs, and Kenyan culture are revealed to the reader. The story does not blink at showing the ugly truths, but the tone is never preachy.

I was thoroughly entertained and informed by reading this story and read easily in one session. Mukoma wa Ngugi is definitely a wonderful addition to the mystery genre and I look forward to his future books. I recommend this book to readers who like a well-developed plot and international crime stories.

This book was provided by the publisher for review purposes.

Reviewed by Beverly
APOOO Literary Book Review

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Nov 29, 2011 Tony rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I'm always excited to read crime stories set in other cultures, and so I picked up this Kenyan-set book with great anticipation. The story actually opens in the American college town of Madison, Wisconsin, where a beautiful young white woman has been found dead on the doorstep of a visiting Rwandan professor. A local African-American police detective named Ishmael catches the case, and is soon sucked into a whirlpool of confusion involving the legacy of the genocide in Rwanda 15 years in the pas I'm always excited to read crime stories set in other cultures, and so I picked up this Kenyan-set book with great anticipation. The story actually opens in the American college town of Madison, Wisconsin, where a beautiful young white woman has been found dead on the doorstep of a visiting Rwandan professor. A local African-American police detective named Ishmael catches the case, and is soon sucked into a whirlpool of confusion involving the legacy of the genocide in Rwanda 15 years in the past. The professor is a hero of the genocide, referred to as a kind of Rwandan Schindler (Paul Rusesabagina is purposefully not invoked), who used his school as a safe haven and waystation to smuggle people to safety. Now he is one of the public faces of a international charity devoted to supporting the victims of the genocide.

With no clues to go on, Ishmael and his chief are stuck -- until an anonymous phone call directs them to go to Nairobi to find the truth. Ishmael hops on a plane, and soon enough, is knocking around the Kenyan capital with a local police detective, stirring up trouble. As they start to look into the charity, and the center it runs, they encounter varying degrees of resistance, and meet a string of shady characters (most notable among them is a crazy rich white plantation owner), and Ishmael falls for a sexy slam poetess who helps him uncover the truth.

Unfortunately, while he book does a great job of capturing the feel of Nairobi's slums and rich enclaves, the story itself is kind of ridiculous in a lot of ways. For example, it's not very plausible from either a cost or jurisdiction perspective that a local police force would send a detective halfway around the world on the strength of an anonymous phone call. Nor is it very plausible that the professor would be as readily dismissed as a suspect as he is. It's hard to get into it without spoiling the story, but even a basic police search of a particular building would have revealed all the evidence needed to identify the culprit from the get-go. But since that would have removed the whole basis for the trip to Kenya, it's conveniently glossed over. These flaws (and a few others) make the crime element of the story feel rather amateurish.

When the story moves to Kenya, it does find itself on more solid ground, and the setting and characters feel a little more real. What doesn't work quite as well is the attempt to have Ishmael undergo a kind of racial awakening while in Africa. While on the case, he becomes more and more comfortable in the country and finds a certain serenity there that is so beguiling that he's tempted to move there. It all feels a bit thin and I wasn't convinced by it. Another element that wasn't particularly convincing was the corrupt charity that Ishmael is investigating, or rather, not that it is corrupt, but the mechanics of its corruption. The scheme that's uncovered is paper thin, and it's (again) not particularly plausible. You have to buy into the notion that the entire Board of Directors of a giant company like Shell are directly involved in the corruption. I've certainly got no love for Shell, especially given their behavior in Nigeria, but people at that level of power aren't going to get directly involved in something as transparently shady as what's the plot describes.

I love the idea of the crime novel as a vehicle for social history and social commentary, but the crime element has to be believable. In this book, it's not, and the entire book suffers as a result. I will, however, be curious to see what the author (who is the son of Kenya's most prominent writer, Ngugi wa Thiong'o) comes up with for his next book.
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