Bait is organised to relate the events over 12 days at various locations between Mombasa and Malindi and out in the Indian Ocean. There are 67 short chapters making it a quick, easy and exciting read.

There is a wide range of unusual characters in "Bait". Central to the story are two English men, who for a variety of reasons joined forces to establish Britannia Fishing Trips at Flamingo Creek north of Mombasa. Their fishing boat, "Yellowfin", is already 15-years-old, but still seaworthy. They call their clients, mostly gung-ho Europeans or North Americans, "Ernies" as they have found many of them aspire to catch a giant Marlin, just like in The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.

The partners are Harry Philliskirk and Jake Moore. Jake had grown up in England the last in a long line of manly fishermen. He decided to become a policeman, but after years of service as a detective, he got caught in a critical accident and having survived decided to start a new life in Kenya.

He has now been on the Kenyan coast for six years and has so far hidden his past from others. Sammy Eruwa works for them as their "bait boy".

Harry and Jake's big headache is their large debt for accumulated fuel orders to an Arab trader, Abdul. Without the fuel on credit the "Flamingo" could not have taken its loads of Ernie's out to sea. But Abdul was losing his patience and wants to be paid what he is owed.

Harry's and Jake's hangout after hours is Suki Lo's dive on the sleazy side of Flamingo Creek. Other characters out of Kenya's colonial past gather there.

They include an erratic crocodile farmer from South Africa, Tug Viljoen, who has not lost his preference for anti-African attitudes and racist brutality. His captain from the wars against the freedom movements, Conrad Getty, is nearby, the owner of the Marlin Bay Hotel, an up-market destination for foreign tourists offering the biggest, newest and best at a high price.

When Dennis Bentley, a rival deep sea fishing boat operator, with a good boat "Martha B", named after his only daughter, goes missing, boat and all, along with his bait boy 13-year-old Tigi Eruwa, Sammy's younger brother and his crew, George Malewe, foul play is suspected. When parts of George's body wash up at Bara Hoyo, the coroner in Mombasa, Dr Christie, could still see clearly that George had died before he was in the water in what must have been a severe explosion.

This moves the reader on to the complicated jigsaw puzzle of a case that Detective Inspector Daniel Jouma of the Coast Province CID, Mombasa, sees as his. He is aided by Detective Sergeant Nyami. Nyami turns out to belong to a slew of police officers that have easily been corrupted over the years by those with money to bribe them. There is also a dispute as to whose jurisdiction the case of the missing "Martha B" and crew actually belongs to, as Chief Inspector Oliver Mugo of Malindi, claims it is his and quickly writes it off as an accident caused by a leaky fuel pipe.

But others know that Dennis Bentley recently spent US$10,000 refurbishing his boat and this just can't be true.

After a different kind of incident through which Daniel Jouma learns that Jake Moore has a secret history that actually might make him be of service to his cause, he informally recruits him to assist in his enquiries.

The cast of despicable characters is large. The young kingpin of organised crime on the coast is Michael Kili. His offices are in Mombasa behind the Baobab Club. His tentacles spread through all aspects of organised crime on the coast, including gambling, drugs and prostitution.

His right hand man and record keeper is another Arab, Jacob Omu. Over the years they have paid regular bribes to nearly everyone in the police force, except Detective Inspector Daniel Jouma.

Michael Kili is linked to outside organisers including a Mr Whitestone and some Russian gangsters.

When she hears the news of her father's so-called accident, Martha Bentley, has been living and working as a Yale trained lawyer in New York City for many years. She decides to fly home to Mombasa leaving behind her current boyfriend, Patrick Noonan, to feed her cat. She told him to stay in NYC and not follow her to Kenya. When he does show up on the coast the mysteries all open up even further.

After Martha Bentley has settled in at the upbeat Marlin Bay Hotel she gets a boat to Flamingo Creek to visit her father's boatyard. There she finds Jake Moore and Detective Inspector Daniel Jouma examining the place for clues to the disaster at sea of her father's boat, the "Martha B".

When two hoods in an old red Chris Craft speedboat armed with an Uzi attack them Jake's old training and instincts come to the fore and he is able to fend them off.

But who were the gangsters and why did they attack Bentley's shipyard?

What are the links between Dennis Bentley, Michael Kili, Chief Inspector Oliver Mugo and his colleagues, Tug Viljoen, Conrad Getty, Mr Whitestone, and perhaps even Patrick Noonan? What is the nefarious activity whose threads tie them all together? To say more now would give the story away. If you like nitty-gritty detective yarns you might enjoy this one.

E-mail: sheridangriswold@yahoo.com