Celebrating Mysteries: Africa and Australasia

 

We share a lot of reading DNA, so I know that many of you also love reading mysteries with a strong sense of place. You may enjoy reading such books because you're reminded of a place you visited and loved, or you may enjoy reading them because it's a place you've never been and you want to learn more about it. For whatever reason, books with a strong sense of place can really take us out of our daily grind.

I've decided to write a series of posts that shine a spotlight on mysteries that exhibit such a strong sense of place that you almost feel as though you're there as you turn the pages. This week, I'll be focusing on Africa and Australasia. Clicking on the link in the book title will take you to my review of that book.

Let's get started!

Botswana

If you're interested in excellent mysteries and strong characters-- as well as learning about the landscape, customs, and food of Botswana, you can't beat reading Michael Stanley's Detective Kubu mysteries. 

A Carrion Death, the first Detective Kubu mystery

The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu, the second in the series

Death of the Mantis, the third book

This series currently has seven books.

Ghana

Kwei Quartey is another author I've been following since his first book. I first got hooked on his police procedural series featuring Darko Dawson, and now he's begun a new series with a female private investigator named Emma Djann.

Wife of the Gods, the first Darko Dawson mystery

Children of the Street, the second in the series

The Missing American, the first Emma Djann mystery

The Darko Dawson series has five books.

The Emma Djann series currently has two books.

South Africa

Sally Andrew has a marvelous series featuring Tannie Marie, who lives in the Klein Karoo of South Africa... and she certainly knows how to cook! 

Recipes for Love and Murder is the first book in the series.

The Satanic Mechanic is the second book.

There is a third book in the series, Death on the Limpopo, but it only seems to be available in South Africa, which does not make me happy.

American Samoa

John Enright introduced me to American Samoa, and I was hooked. His Detective Sergeant Apelu Soifua is an excellent guide to the area, and I love Enright's poetic descriptions of the landscape.

There are four books in the Jungle Beat series:

Pago Pago Tango

Fire Knife Dancing

The Dead Don't Dance

Blood Jungle Ballet

I wish he had written more!

the Solomon Islands

Graeme Kent's Native police sergeant Ben Kella and American nun Sister Conchita had me living in the Solomon Islands during the 1960s as I read the books.

Devil-Devil is the first book in the series

One Blood is the second book

In researching this post, I was thrilled to discover that there's a third book in the series, Killman, and I immediately bought it.

Australia

When it comes to the crime fiction of Australia, there are several wonderful authors, but Adrian Hyland and Jane Harper are two of my particular favorites. 

 

Adrian Hyland wrote a much too brief  two-book series featuring part-white, part-aborigine Emily Tempest who lives in the Outback. These two books give a very different perspective of the Land Down Under.

Moonlight Downs is the first book (APA Diamond Dove)

Gunshot Road is the second

 

Jane Harper has written a (so far) two-book series featuring Federal police officer Aaron Falk and a couple of standalone thrillers. All of them take you right to the heart of Australia.

The Dry is the first Aaron Falk mystery

The Lost Man is a standalone thriller

I hope I've piqued your interest in these books and authors and that I've added to your Need to Read lists. But this is a two-way street. As far as Africa and Australasia are concerned, which mysteries do you turn to that have not only excellent stories but a strong sense of place as well? Inquiring minds would love to know!

Next up at a future date: Europe!

The Satanic Mechanic by Sally Andrew

First Line: Have you ever wanted something really badly?

Although Tannie Maria is still busy with her recipe and advice column for the local paper, she can't help being concerned when Slimkat the bushman's life is threatened. She takes these threats seriously and is determined to find out who wants to kill him. Problem is, the man in her life wants to keep her safe and could very well be keeping secret some of the answers she needs to find.

It would be nice if those things were the only items on Tannie Maria's to-do list, but... she has personal mysteries that need to be solved, too.

Reading Sally Andrew's first Tannie Maria mystery, Recipes for Love and Murder, last May was one of the best things I've done all year. Once introduced to this wonderful South African landscape, its culture, and the characters, I snapped up the second book as soon as it was available. I didn't want to read The Satanic Mechanic too soon, I really didn't... but I simply could not deny myself.

The country of South Africa is a character in this book. Andrew's descriptions of the landscape and wildlife are absolutely marvelous and immediately immersed me in the story. Tannie Maria is the type of character who notices changes in the weather and countryside, and how animals are behaving-- and these observations, to varying degrees, usually have some sort of impact on the narrative.

To Tannie Maria, cooking equals love. She is falling in love with Detective Lieutenant Henk Kannemeyer and this means that her cooking skills are going into overdrive. However, all is not sunshine and flowers in this budding relationship. Maria has demons from her past that must be laid to rest, and to do this she joins an open-air Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder group. Attending the meetings introduces her to the threatened Slimkat.

What subsequently happens to Slimkat is almost incidental until things start happening in the group sessions. In this second book in Sally Andrew's series, the mystery is secondary to her characters, all that delicious food, and the vibrant South African surroundings, but those three things are so rich and satisfying I really didn't mind. 

If you love series like Martin Walker's Bruno Chief of Police or Tarquin Hall's Vish Puri-- series that have wonderful characters, vivid settings, and sumptuous cultures that you can sink into with a sigh-- I urge you to read Sally Andrew's Tannie Maria mysteries (in order). They're wonderful!
  

The Satanic Mechanic by Sally Andrew

eISBN:9781782116516
Canongate Books © 2016
eBook, 312 pages

Cozy Mystery, #2 Tannie Maria mystery
Rating: A-
Source: Purchased from Amazon  


 

Recipes for Love and Murder by Sally Andrew

First Line: Isn't life funny? You know, how one thing leads to another in a way you just don't expect.

Tannie Maria loves to cook, and she loves to eat. She also loves sharing her experiences with food in her recipe column for the local newspaper in her rural South African town. But that all changes when the newspaper owners decide that their readership is hungrier for advice on love than it is for meal tips. Tannie Maria doesn't like the change, but she soon discovers that she has a knack for helping people with their problems... and adding a recipe or two to make them feel better. 

One of the people Tannie Maria reaches out to is a woman with an abusive husband. When that woman is found murdered, Tannie Maria becomes dangerously tangled up in the investigation-- even though one police detective in particular is doing everything he can to keep her safe.

I have a feeling that there are people who are going to read Recipes for Love and Murder and think it's nothing but an imitation of Alexander McCall Smith's Precious Ramotswe series set in Botswana. Now having read books from both series, I can safely say that-- in my opinion-- it's similar, but not an imitation, and that I prefer Sally Andrews' book. I could only read three or four books into Smith's series because Mma Ramotswe was too all-knowing and the books were just a bit too sweet and charming for my taste. 

Sally Andrews' book not only has recipes and an Afrikaans/South African glossary, it gave me a very real feel for rural South Africa, its landscape, its weather, and its wildlife. Tannie Maria is a woman who notices all these things, and when she's not outside, she's cooking, or at the newspaper office working on her column and being a good friend to her co-workers Hattie and Jessie. 

Tannie Maria is a wonderful character with some rough edges and a bit of history that she has to deal with through the course of the book. There are some tension-filled, downright scary scenes, and I found it tough to identify the killer. In short-- I loved this book and am most definitely looking forward to reading more in the series, but this is where I have to file a complaint-- and a word of advice.

The advice first. I do recommend that you read this book, but when you do, please make sure that you read a physical copy of the book, not a digital copy. Andrews uses many Afrikaans and South African words throughout the book, and although I could usually determine a word's meaning from its context, I'm one of these people who enjoy learning bits and pieces of other languages, so there were times that I wanted to make sure that I had deduced the correct meaning. It was absolutely painful to flip back and forth from story to glossary  on my Kindle. It would've been ideal if each of those words had been a hyperlink that would take me directly to its definition in the glossary, but I imagine that the price of the book would have doubled (at least). It's a shame, but I have learned my lesson. Rant over. (And for the curious, my tribulations with the glossary had no effect on my rating of the book. This isn't Sally Andrew's fault.)

Recipes for Love and Murder is a wonderful mystery that takes you right to the heart of rural South Africa and its people. I highly recommend it!

Recipes for Love and Murder by Sally Andrew

eISBN: 9780062397683

Ecco © 2015

eBook, 437 pages

Amateur Sleuth, #1 Tannie Maria mystery

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from Amazon.