Facets of Death by Michael Stanley

Michael Stanley is the writing team of  retired Professors Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. They clearly have a love of Botswana which is in every page of these mysteries. The fear of a Witch Doctor and his gruesome packages adds an eerie touch to the book. Their writing style is an odd mix of gentle pacing, with the unusual mix of dogged police work. All in all this adds up to a very winning combination for a mystery. 

The main Character Sgt. Kabu is working very hard to make a name for himself in this preliminary book, that provides us with his background. He has a lot to learn, but has to overcome prejudice mixed with resentment. He came straight from the University and some of his co-workers resent him for entering the Police Force that way. Kabu has some heart- warming incidents... with a girl he gets a crush on and some hard taxing from an Asst. Supervisor but he is learning and working hard.

The background of this book has a wide-scoped Afrikaan frame- with murders intertwined with Witch Doctors and the Diamond Industry. The Book's pace is very easy-going but consistent. The Police Character is named after a Hippo, which after the first snicker, I settled down with very comfortably and rooted him on. The Background is magnificent and the Character is humble and the style is easy to read. This is a prequel to the award winning series and a great addition.

Blurb:


David Bengu has always stood out from the crowd. His personality and his physique match his nickname, Kubu—Setswana for "hippopotamus"—a seemingly docile creature, but one of the deadliest in Africa. His keen mind and famous persistence have seen him rise in the Botswana CID. But how did he get his start?

His resentful new colleagues are suspicious of a detective who has entered the CID straight from university, skipping the usual beat cop phase.


Shortly after he joins the CID, the richest diamond mine in the world is robbed of 100,000 carats of diamonds in transit. The robbery is well-executed and brutal. Police immediately suspect an inside job, but there is no evidence of who it could be.
When the robbers are killed execution-style in South Africa and the diamonds are still missing, the game changes, and suspicion focuses on a witch doctor and his son. Does "Kubu" have the skill and the integrity to engineer an international trap and catch those responsible, or will the biggest risk of his life end in disaster?

e match his nickname, Kubu—Setswana for "hippopotamus"—a seemingly docile creature, but one of the deadliest in Africa. His keen mind and famous persistence have seen him rise in the Botswana CID. But how did he get his start?Inauspiciously. His resentful new colleagues are suspicious of a detective who has entered the CID straight from university, skipping the usual beat cop phase. Nearly broke, with no car or wife, Kubu has the support of his parents, but success will depend on self-reliance. He is immediately plunged into investigations at two airports.

One takes him to the airport near Gaborone where something criminal is going on in baggage claim.
The other begins at Jwaneng Airport, where a plane bursts into flames. It's the opening move in a brutal heist of stones from the world's richest diamond mine. The robbers die in a shoot-out, but the diamonds remain missing. So who masterminded the crime? Rumors of a witch doctor's involvement send the detectives down a dark path. Ultimately, new recruit Kubu finds himself engineering a risky trap. Will his first major case prove his worth—or kill his career?