For nearly the first half of "Bait," the excellent debut novel by Nick Brownlee, apparently disconnected events transpire over a period of several days, in measured pace.
The mien of the patrician owner of the luxurious Marlin Bay Hotel, situated in the midst of squalor and stunning poverty in Kenya, is captured by the author perfectly and succinctly: "Getty paused in front of a wall mirror in order to smooth his augmented silver hair across his skull and liberally spray his tongue with peppermint breath-freshener." [His emotional distance from the lives of those who lived outside the protected walls of his compound, embroiled in a civil war that had to that point cost many lives, is perhaps best summed up by his reference to "a little local difficulty."]
Filled with brutality and actions fueled by - in equal parts - as stated by more than one player, stupidity and greed, together with pervasive corruption, the novel begins with the disappearance of Dennis Bentley, a white Kenyan who ran a game boat and had a reputation as "a loner and a cantankerous bastard," soon followed by the disappearance of George Malewe, described as a lowlife from Mombasa Old Town, whose young wife is convinced he has been slain. Things turn ugly when a body is washed up on the beach and Bentley and his bait boy are found to have been blown up in the water, in what may be connected events.
Twenty-nine-year-old ex-Scotland Yard cop Jake Moore is now six years later a game boat skipper, and is asked to assist Mombasa Detective Inspector Daniel Jouma of the Coast Province CID. Jouma, 51 years old and thirty-three years a serving police officer, is seemingly the only good cop on the force. He finds himself almost ludicrously defending his refusal to succumb to the corruption taken for granted by everyone else, and is told "Why? Because you are a policeman? Because you have sworn to uphold the law and protect the people? Don't think so highly of your vocation, Jouma. You saw what happened when they gave the people ballot boxes. Chaos. Anarchy. Death. They are animals and should be treated as such. No, Inspector, Kenya is about one thing and one thing alone: survival of the fittest. "
Set amid the five-star luxury and third world squalor of Kenya's east coast, the challenge to Moore and Jouma is clear. The "bait" of the title is as innocent as the simple thing used by Jake and others on their fishing boats, or something much more sinister. This is a first-class first novel, and promises to be the initial entry in a promised series, with the next title, "Burn," being published by Piatkus in the UK in July of 2009 and hopefully in the US without much further delay. It is next up for this reviewer, and I can't wait! Highly recommended.
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