Facets of Death
Page 26
However, it was obvious to our young professor that it was no accident that the body was lying naked on the Kalahari sands. It was a case of murder, so the police had to be called in. A large, food- and opera-loving detective climbed into his Land Rover and headed out into the Kalahari. Because of his size, his nickname was Kubu, which means hippopotamus in the Setswana language. Along the way, he mused about how a Bushman school friend had trained him to see beyond the superficial by pointing out hidden things in the desert such as the stone-like Lithops plants and the trapdoor spiders. By the time he had visited the scene of the crime and interviewed the men who had found the body, Kubu made it clear to us that he had to be the main character. That came as a complete surprise. We thought we were in charge of the story.
Fortunately for us, it turned out that Kubu was a major attraction for readers. Marilyn Stasio in the New York Times summed up the matter succinctly in her review of the book: “Readers may be lured to Africa by the landscape, but it takes a great character like Kubu to win our loyalty.”
We were delighted that Kubu won readers’ loyalty, but the fact remained that he was unplanned. How well did we actually know him? He was smart and good at solving problems. Unlike many detectives in police procedurals, he was happily married and sober almost all of the time. Of course, during the series his character developed, his relationships with his wife, parents, and colleagues deepened, and he became more solid, more three-dimensional. There were clues about his childhood in the books—things that had come up as we went along. We knew he had loving, traditional, but Christian parents, and that their minister had arranged a scholarship for him at an excellent private school in Gaborone. We knew of his Bushman friend. We knew he loved to do puzzles with his father. We knew where he’d met his wife. But there was nothing that explained how he’d gone from school to being the star detective in the Botswana Criminal Investigation Department. It was not just a hole in his background, but, in a way, a gap in his character.
All our books have a backstory addressing a contemporary issue in southern Africa. We believe that we benefit by having the Kubu series set outside South Africa with its legacy of apartheid and resulting turmoil. Placing the series in Botswana allowed us to focus on other themes that are important in different ways. A Carrion Death had a backstory of blood diamonds; The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu featured the legacy of the civil war in Zimbabwe and its eventual economic collapse; Death of the Mantis addressed the plight of the Bushman peoples of the Kalahari; Deadly Harvest concerned the power of the witchdoctors; A Death in the Family looked at the spread of Chinese financial influence in southern Africa; and Dying to Live dealt with undiscovered medicinal properties of plants in the Kalahari.
Diamonds have always been one of Botswana’s most important exports and allowed the newly independent country to flourish. The two richest diamond mines in the world are there, owned by a joint venture between the government and the diamond giant De Beers. The fact that the country was almost totally reliant on diamonds for its success made us wonder about the impact of a massive heist. Could it shake the country’s financial foundation?
We decided to address both the issue of Kubu’s early role in the CID and a robbery at the height of the diamond boom by writing a prequel to the series—a Kubu mystery that starts the day he joins the CID as a new detective straight out of university without ever having to be a constable on the beat. Immediately things started to take shape. Kubu’s first case is a minor matter concerning a few suitcases going missing at Gaborone airport. Yet it’s a challenging puzzle, and he loves it. However, the other detectives, who have come up in the CID the hard way, have no time for him. He has to struggle to find a place for himself. Sometimes his new boss, Assistant Superintendent Mabaku (who will later become director of the CID), seems disappointed in him. Then a massive diamond robbery takes place and suddenly everything changes. Everyone is thrown into the case, even the raw detective in his first week on the job.
As we wrote the prequel, we were delighted to watch Kubu develop, having insights, but also making the mistakes that only experience can avoid. He earns respect, but also opprobrium. And as Mabaku comes to appreciate his talents, Kubu becomes more and more central to the case. Eventually, they deduce who the mastermind behind the robbery actually is, but they have no strong evidence. Now they have to find some way to catch him, and Kubu and Mabaku both find their careers on the line—in Kubu’s case, before his career has even begun.
By the end of the book, Kubu has learned a lot about being in the CID and how to interact with his colleagues and his superiors. He has also fallen in love with a wonderful woman and sees some hope that his feelings are reciprocated.
Writing Facets of Death was a journey of exploration for us. We learned a lot about how Kubu became the CID’s best detective and about who he is as a person. We know him better now.
We also enjoyed writing the prequel a great deal. We hope readers also will enjoy the young Kubu’s journey.
About the Authors
Michael Stanley is the writing team of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. Both were born in South Africa and have worked in academia and business. Stanley was an educational psychologist, specialising in the application of computers to teaching and learning, and is a pilot. Michael specialised in image processing and remote sensing and taught at the University of the Witwatersrand.
On a flying trip to Botswana, they watched a pack of hyenas hunt, kill, and devour a wildebeest, eating both flesh and bones. That gave them the premise for their first mystery, A Carrion Death, which introduced Detective David “Kubu” Bengu of the Botswana Criminal Investigation Department. It was a finalist for five awards, including the Crime Writers Association Debut Dagger. The series has been critically acclaimed, and their third book, Death of the Mantis, won the Barry Award for Best Paperback Original mystery and was a finalist for an Edgar Award. Deadly Harvest was a finalist for an International Thriller Writers Award.
They have also written a thriller, Shoot the Bastards (Dead of Night outside North America), in which investigative journalist Crystal Nguyen heads to South Africa for National Geographic and gets caught up in the war against rhino poaching and rhino-horn smuggling.
Visit their website, michaelstanleybooks.com, and follow them on Twitter @detectivekubu and on Facebook at facebook.com/MichaelStanleyBooks.