Book review

SHERIDAN GRISWOLD | Friday August 23, 2013 00:00

Michael Stanley (2013) Deadly Harvest: A Detective Kubu Mystery. London, Harper Paperbacks Original, 477 pages, P144. ISBN 978-0-06222-152-0.  Available at Exclusive Books, Riverwalk.

Everyone in Botswana and millions more outside Botswana, know Precious Ramotswe, the Number One Lady Detective from Mochudi. How many know Assistant Superintendent David 'Kubu' (Hippo) Bengo of Acacia Street, Gaborone? Detective Kubu has not been around as long as the famous woman of traditional build who first arrived in 2003, and has been made into a movie and a television series.Kubu first came to our attention only five years ago in A Carrion Death (2008) (Mmegi, 31 October 2008). This was followed by A Deadly Trade (2009) (Mmegi, 9 October 2009) and then Death of the Mantis (2011) (Mmegi, 3 June 2011). Kubu has a couple of things in common with Mma Ramotswe: he is also from Mochudi and he is rotund. The differences after that are all too many to enumerate, and they stack the scales in favour of Kubu. Deadly Harvest is the fourth, and certainly the best (so far) of the series of multiple murder mysteries - multiple because so many people die in each volume. It is being launched on Thursday August 29th at Exclusive Books at 5 pm.

Deadly Harvest is dedicated 'for Alice Mogwe and Unity Dow who fight the battles we just write about'.  What makes this thriller so good is that it cuts so close to the bone.  When you are reading it, you have to keep reminding yourself that it is fiction.The authors, Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip are particularly thankful to a number of policemen: the previous Commissioner of Police in Botswana, Thebeyame Tsimako, and Senior Superintendent Roger Dixon of the South African Police.  Each part of the novel is graced by a relevant quote from William Shakespeare's Macbeth. This work of creative imagination features Detective Kubu and his immediate superior Jacob Mabaku, Director of the Botswana Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Kubu's other colleagues at CID at Kgale View include: the forensic expert Zanele Dlamini; an Internet expert Helenka Koslov; and Ian MacGregor the Botswana Police's pathologist. In addition two senior security officers enter this novel as people who rely on the powers to be gained from muti. An opposition politician accompanies them in this ill-gotten pursuit.

In the background hovers the unsolved mystery of Segametsi Mogomotsi in 1994 - she was '14 when she disappeared while trying to sell oranges to raise money for a church excursion' (page 19). The authors then say, with unusual understatement, 'Her dismembered body was found months later'.  Those in Botswana who experienced the rolling strikes, the shooting of an innocent woman by the SSG, and the continuously failed investigations, culminating in a report by Scotland Yard that was never released, know that Segametsi's body was dumped soon after she vanished near the gates of the Molefi Senior Secondary School in Mochudi, and that many people believed that those in high offices who used muti to enhance their powers were being protected.

Deadly Harvest builds on these events by introducing a new character, the CID's first woman detective, Samantha Khama, also from Mochudi. She is angry and wants action because she knew Segametsi Mogomotsi at Molefi.  This time she doesn't want anyone to be protected; no matter who they are or how high their office.  Samantha is a welcome addition to Kubu's team - at least for the reader. For Kubu she is a challenge. He was allocated Samantha to orient her to their work, and found her prickliness difficult.  She said to him at one point, 'I was told you would be sympathetic, that you weren't like the others!  But you're the same, aren't you?  In favour of women's rights in words, but not in action'.Detective Kubu still likes his favourite drink, steelworks, along with a good meal and a fine dry red wine.  Joy still works at a preschool, one where Dr Pilane volunteers as the physician for the children.  Kubu and Joy add an orphan to their family, little Nono.  Soon she and their daughter Tumi are fast friends. Kubu's father, Wilmon Bengu, is aging and beginning to lose his memory.

Over time the deaths escalate, and the police and CID seem useless. In all, before the riddle of the muti killings is solved, seven people will die. Detective Kubu is in a quandary. Samantha is smarting with anger at what she sees as incompetence, even a possible cover up.  The trail rises higher and higher until it reaches to a Deputy Commissioner of Police. 'Kubu wondered if Mabaku was serious. He was talking about a deputy commissioner of police! An educated man, respected through Southern Africa. Then he thought of the man in the room next to them, scared and sweating and shivering. He'd probably absorbed his belief in witch doctors with his mother's milk' (page 278).

First a ten-year-old girl, Lesego Betse, disappeared in Mochudi. Then some time later, a fifteen-year-old girl, Tombi Maleng, vanished. Samantha Khama was finally assigned to the cases nearly five months after they had gone stale. She seeks out the help of Professor Kees van der Meer at the University of Botswana. He briefs her on the nature and practice of the use of muti from humans in Southern Africa. He tells her, 'Many, many people believe in witchcraft ... and many in the police also believe. That's why so few cases are solved' (page 45).This was followed by a leswafe, Mabulo Owido from East Africa, vanishing after having a few drinks at Big Mamma Knows All bar and restaurant. Mabulo came to Botswana from Tanzania to escapee witch doctors. In one year 50 albinos had been murdered for muti there. Albinos are desired, as Kubu says, because they have 'very powerful spirits. The spirit has sucked up everything from the body, even the colour of the skin. It is very bad to free one of those spirits by force. It's very powerful muti for a witch doctor, but extremely dangerous' (page 306).

Kubu tries to get assistance from Mrs Gobey after her husband died. He tells her about the three muti killings they are following: 'We think all of these people were killed by the same man. How many more are there going to be?' (page 349). Joshua Gobey used a computer in the shadows of an isolated shebeen in north Gaborone and a secret programme on Hushmail to communicate to his Sangoma. Breaks in the case will come from unusual quarters. But very few readers will probably be able to guess until near the end of this mystery novel who is responsible for the muti killings. Unlike Scotland Yard's involvement, there is a final resolution, as always, with Detective Kubu. sheridangriswold@yahoo.com