Category Archives: Fiction

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Ng’ang’a Mbugua book Different Colours for Daystar University course

Nganga Mbugua is a Kenyan publisher with his Big Books and the author of several titles including This Land is Our Land, Terrorists of the Aberdare and Different colours. For his efforts he won the Wahome Mutahi’s Literary prize for Terrorists in 2010 and Different Colours in 2012.

The writer has been pleasantly surprised this week when his book Different Colours was selected by Dr Jennifer Muchiri and Daystar University as a course book this semester for a creative writing course. This is a great thing for him as it means that there will be a bump in the sales of his book as students need to get the book to do their course work.

More royalties are never a bad thing in anyone’s opinion. Especially not mine.

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A review of Mukoma Wa Ngugi’s Killing Sahara

Killing Sahara

Book: Killing Sahara

Author: Mukoma Wa Ngugi

Publisher: Kwela Books

Year of publication: 2013

Number of pages: 229

Genre: Crime fiction

We have met Ishmael Fofona the African American detective in African literature before. He was introduced to us by Mukoma Wa Ngugi when he wrote his first major book Nairobi Heat which came out in 2009 published by Spear Books. He is a policeman in based in Wisconsin, USA who had to follow the trail of a murder of a white girl that led him to Kenya. While in Kenya he meets with Kenyan police detective Tom Odhiambo who goes by the moniker “O” and hooks up with Muddy a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide who in Nairobi is a spoken word artist.

Killing Sahara is the second in the Fofona detective series this time published by Kwela books. In this one, Ishmael has relocated from the US and is now based in Nairobi where he runs the Black Star detective agency with his pal O. He is also dating his spoken word artist Muddy from the first book. The government gives the Black Star agency a crime to solve; investigate a body found in Ngong forest in Nairobi and figure out what may have caused the death of its owner.

They follow the trail of the dead man who the crime lab tells them is not Kenyan miro (black) but in actual fact an American miro. With this information Ishmael is very motivated to find the killer of his fellow countryman (or rather country person – the word “countryman brings the chills down many of us in Kenya right now with all the deaths). The investigation gets a break on the next day after a bomb attack at the Norfolk Hotel in and they slowly start piecing together a story although too much is unknown at this early stage.

As they are in the middle of investigations Mary, the wife of O, is killed by some the bad guys who invaded his home one of whom called himself “Sahara” from the T-shirt he was sporting. Sahara escapes with the help of an enterprising member of his team after the act it is assumed back to the USA. The trio Ishmael, O and Muddy with the help of the CIA follow him back to the US through Mexico and onto his base in California. Here they find more clues to the case and they have to go back home to solve what looks like one of the biggest cases a Kenyan detective could solve. The End.

Now the interesting thing about the two Ishmael Fofona books is the body count. It’s like the books are written with the hope that when they comes out it will be directed by Michael Bay. After the bomb blast which kills dozens (as opposed to “tens”, Kenyan media) the trail of dead bodies starts piling most of whom are dispatched to their maker by the trio of Ishmael, O or Muddy. They kill folks in Limuru when people are looking to kill O because he was from the wrong tribe as he goes to bury his dead wife. They kill many of Sahara’s team at O’s house before the American flees to his homeland. They kill folks as they are smuggling their way into the US. They kill folks in the US especially those associated with Sahara. No one is safe from this trio. Paraphrasing something Martin Lawrence says in the Bad Boys movies franchise to the Will Smith character Mike Lowry, it’s like the three are a magnet for random gunfire. And Muddy does a pretty good impression of the Gabrielle Union character in the second Bad Boys (fortunately she doesn’t do the girly thing they do in Hollywood movies of being kidnapped so that the good guy saves them.)

Then there is the post election crisis that we suffered in 2007/8 which the characters find they have to deal with. It is an instrumental part of the plot as they see the country as it starts falling apart before heading out to the US and they return the madness is winding down. The description of this part of our history is very useful and I suspect that this could be Mukoma’s “post election book” and he is quite sensitive to both sides of the madness as no one was in the “wrong” where citizens were concerned. I really appreciated that.

The characters really grow on you. The main protagonist Ishmael Fofona we have already met and he is pretty cool; his thunder is clearly stolen by Kenyan cop O though. We all know a guy a like O; hard as nails but happy to show a different side of him when the need arises. And he is still making his omelets in this one; I hope he learns to cook something else soon especially since he is now a widower. Then we have spoken word artist Muddy who was also part of the RPF who liberated Rwanda who is lady like in her craft as an artist but still tough as nails during the many shootings she has to endure in this book.

The other guys in the book are also distinct and I have to say the most compelling one has to be “Sahara” himself when we meet him. He has a screw lose but he is an amazing one with his weird empathy for Africa.

I loved the new locations in the book. I would never have imagined that a person would have thought of involving Tijuana in a Kenyan book as a conduit to get into that country. The research done showed me a writer who was willing to put in the hours to make their book a more interesting read.

This book is much better that Nairobi Heat. In fact I could hazard to say that, using my best Jeff Koinange voice…. Oh my! This Killing Sahara book is smoooking! And its only Wednesday that this review is coming through.

Get a copy if you can folks. Quality.

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Richard Crompton’s second Inspector Mollel novel Hell’s Gate out

Inspector Mollel was introduced to many of us in Richard Crompton’s debut The Hour of the Red God last year. The book was received very well and I have to say I am a fan if you read my review of the book.

The latest edition in the Inspector Mollel series is out today and you can buy it on Kindle and hardback in some markets (not Kenya). For Kenyans looking forward to read they book they will have to wait a few weeks to read the hard back. Here is the blurb from the book for those who can’t wait:

The gripping second novel in Richard Crompton’s highly acclaimed, sharply plotted Mollel series – ‘a compulsive whodunnit set in Kenya’
(Ian Rankin)

It must have been someone’s idea of a joke. Too many offended egos back at headquarters, too many influential people unhappy with him in Nairobi. And yet, with his record, almost impossible to dismiss. So where had they sent Mollel? Straight to Hell.

When Mollel, a former Maasai warrior turned detective, ends up in a small, fly-blown town on the edge of a national park, it looks as if his career has taken a nose-dive. His colleagues are a close-knit group and they have not taken kindly to a stranger in their midst.
Mollel suspects they are guilty of the extortion and bribery that plague the force, but when the body of a flower worker turns up in the local lake, he wonders if they might be involved in something more disturbing…
For all is not as it seems in Hell’s Gate. Amid rumours of a local death squad, disappearances and blackmail, Mollel is forced not only to confront his Maasai heritage, but also to ask himself where justice truly lies. In upholding the law, is he doing what is right?

Check it folks out. If it is anything like the first book this will be another page turner.

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Chimamanda Adichie makes Bailey’s Prize for fiction 2014 shortlist

The shortlisted books

The shortlist for the Baileys Prize 2014 was unveiled at a ceremony last night with Nigerian Chimamanda Adichie making the shortlist for her book Americanah.

The Baileys Women’s Prize for fiction, formerly the Orange Prize, is the UK’s only annual book award for fiction written by women. The longlist for the prize was announced earlier in the year and the shortlist was announced in a glittering ceremony in London UK last night. Those who are still in the running to win the price include;

  • Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Americanah
  • Audrey Magee – The Undertaking
  • Jhumpa Lahiri – The Lowland
  • Hannah Kent – Burial rites
  • Donna Tartt – The Goldfinch
  • Elmear McBride – A girl is a half formed thing

Chimamanda Adichie has to be seen as a forerunner for the prize. She already won the Orange Prize in 2007 for her previous book Half of A yellow Sun and has been collecting prizes for her newest work.

Interestingly enough, none of the Canadians writers who had been in the longlist including 2013 Booker Prize winner Eleanor Catton for The Luminaries was shortlisted.

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A review of Mukoma Wa Ngugi’s Nairobi Heat

Book: Nairobi Heat

Author: Mukoma Wa Ngugi

Publisher: Spear Books

Year of publishing: 2009

Number of pages: 212

Nairobi Heat is the debut novel of Cornell literature professor Mukoma Wa Ngugi and it was published by Spear Books in 2009.

The book speaks of black African American police Detective Ishmael Fofona who is investigating the death of a blonde white girl in Bluff, Maple Madison, USA. At the scene of the crime he meets with Joshua Hazimana who is a professor at a local university. The good professor is also an African, a gentleman from Rwanda who it turns out had been a hero who ensured that people escaped the genocide squads aka genocidaires. Think of him as a black Oscar Schindler.

Ishmael gets an anonymous call telling him that he should go to Kenya to find out the killer and with no leads on the identity of the girl opts to head to the green city in the sun Nairobi. Here he meets with Nairobi police man David Odhiambo who goes by the name “O” for the rest of the book. While here he gets to the bottom of a tale involving NGOs, foundations and death and distraction especially with ones at the centre of one of the worst human tragedies in a century the 1994 Rwanda genocide. It is a compelling tale well told by a writer who can really really really really really (too much?) write.

The book is as action packed as you would ever see from a Kenyan writer. The adventures that the two fellows Ishmael and O go through make me think that this is the best script for an African version of the Bad Boys movie trilogy as there are so many dead bodies by the end of the book died mainly by bullet. Crazy stuff I tell you.

I love seeing my city in Nairobi with the new eyes of Ishmael who doesn’t seem to have any of my prejudices. He sees the city in its best and worst light possible which I appreciate as I am not a fan of writers portraying characters in their books who you would imaging work for the tourism board of a country they work in. He keeps it real! *Dave Chapelle voice*

We see a Mathare that has a young school girl being raped without anyone doing anything about it until hero Ishmael comes to the rescue leading to death of at least five. Good for him he prevented the rape of a school girl. We see Muthaiga where the rich live in their huge residences away from the masses. We see people in River Road immortalised by Meja Mwangi. We see folks living away from the city in semi-rural settings just outside the city.

Even as Ishmael goes through with the intrigues I have to wonder if is a bit too observant for someone who had never ever had any interest in Africa till he fly there and has been there for only a few days. “Africa, where people never wear seat belts” one of his many observations sounds less than a guy who had been to the US and back more than a guy that had come to visit after just a few hours.

In spite of the “super observant” Ishmael I really enjoyed this character and the general way the writer develops him. Ishmael is a gentleman who came from a middle class family and refuses to go the white collar route like his parents going instead into the police force. He is a divorcee who has still not fully come to terms with his having moved on after his divorce. Also interesting were some of the support characters; O and his school teacher wife, sexy singer who was once a refugee herself Muddy.

There is even the entry of a character called Lord Thompson who kills two Africans a poacher and a KWS officer who is thick in the plot. He reminds me a lot about our favourite Kenyan expatriate “poacher exterminator” Thomas Cholmondeley.

Ishmael goes through a lot to solve the case of the dead white blonde girl. I recommend you follow him on his wild chase through Nairobi and its environs.

P.S. While we are on Rwanda stuff I recommend you read Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor‘s

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