Bait
Number 1 in series
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- £1.99
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- £1.99
Publisher Description
Ex-Flying Squad cop Jake Moore's career was cut short by a bullet; ten years on, he runs a game fishing business that is about to go to the wall. But old habits die hard, and when cerebral Mombasa detective Daniel Jouma - seemingly the only good policeman in a city where corruption is king - asks for his help in solving a baffling murder case, he cannot help but become involved.
The mangled body of a street criminal has been washed up on the beach and a fishing boat skipper and his bait boy have blown up in the water. When Jake and Jouma look closer, they discover that not only are the murders linked, but the conspiracy surrounding them stretches far beyond the reaches of Africa - and has deadly implications for everyone concerned.
This gripping crime thriller strips away Kenya's tourist glitz and exposes the country's dark and treacherous underbelly beneath.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Murder piled on grisly murder drives British author Brownlee's uneven debut, a crime thriller set in contemporary Kenya, where expatriates and natives make their own destiny or are crushed by someone else's. Former Scotland Yard copper Jake Moore, co-owner of a marginal sport fishing outfit in Mombasa, owes an Arab oil dealer $17,000 for diesel fuel because the country's civil unrest has scared off "Ernies," "pale-faced tourists who came to Kenya in search of big fish." Jake; his fellow Brit partner, Harry Philliskirk; and Det. Insp. Daniel Jouma, possibly the only Kenyan cop not on the take, tangle with a variety of nasties, whose crisis-management skills are limited to personal disposal of their opponents. While the book occasionally provides terse, deadly insights into the local culture, it offers mostly predictable glimpses into the unsavory side of the dark continent. Still, Brownlee shows enough promise that readers can reasonably hope for more than just relentless brutality in the sequel.
