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I read this book as a teenager and it really had a profound impact on me. I plan on rereading it and leaving a better review but even after 15ish years the book truly stands out in my mind from the 1000s of books I’ve read in my lifetime.
1952 South African is the perfect setting for this murder mystery, which explores themes of racism and religious zealotry; so glad there are more in the series.
Malla Nunn writes with such a sure and steady hand that it's hard to believe this is a first novel. She really knows how to string you along with the mystery, keeping you reading as the secret lives of the characters are slowly revealed.
The mystery itself is excellent, but the intimate look at rural apartheid in South Africa is equally as interesting, if not more so. The story takes place in 1952, shortly after the National Party has enacted very strict new segregation laws. It's against the law for whites and blacks to even touch each other. The murder of an Afrikaner police captain leads to an investigation that ultimately reveals the depravity of those who believe they are ordained and favored by God. They see this as entitlement to take what they want from those not favored. Their whiteness makes them virtually immune to the consequences of their actions. Or does it?
I'm looking forward to the second book in the Emmanuel Cooper series. My copy of this first one has a teaser with the first few pages of the second one, so I'm all primed up and ready to keep reading!
The mystery itself is excellent, but the intimate look at rural apartheid in South Africa is equally as interesting, if not more so. The story takes place in 1952, shortly after the National Party has enacted very strict new segregation laws. It's against the law for whites and blacks to even touch each other. The murder of an Afrikaner police captain leads to an investigation that ultimately reveals the depravity of those who believe they are ordained and favored by God. They see this as entitlement to take what they want from those not favored. Their whiteness makes them virtually immune to the consequences of their actions. Or does it?
I'm looking forward to the second book in the Emmanuel Cooper series. My copy of this first one has a teaser with the first few pages of the second one, so I'm all primed up and ready to keep reading!
Very slow start to this one but it ended up being a page turner. I guessed who the culprit was well before the ending but it was still a good read.
Set in 1950's apartheid South Africa so racial epithets abound along with a serious caste system.
Set in 1950's apartheid South Africa so racial epithets abound along with a serious caste system.
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
A bit too graphic for me but a well written, interesting story.
Malla Nunn's South African police novel, brilliantly -- if eerily -- set during the dominance of the National Party's Apartheid government, starts slowly, but builds to create a wholly enjoyable mystery, centered around the inexplicable but no-less real effort of the country's white-controlled establishment to segregate 38 million blacks from cultural and political legitimacy. As white detective Emmanuel Cooper investigates the murder of a small town's beloved Afrikaner police captain, he ultimately finds his lot to be inseparable from that of the citizens of Jacob's Rest.
The build-up to the novel's end feels too conveniently cinematic, but recovers in time for several last minute revelations that set the tone for similar novels to come. And while the institutionalization of South Africa's racial prejudice may seem like history, American readers will have no difficulty recasting their nation's pallor toward this new, and intriguing, canvas. A very enjoyable mystery.
The build-up to the novel's end feels too conveniently cinematic, but recovers in time for several last minute revelations that set the tone for similar novels to come. And while the institutionalization of South Africa's racial prejudice may seem like history, American readers will have no difficulty recasting their nation's pallor toward this new, and intriguing, canvas. A very enjoyable mystery.
Initially I really enjoyed this first in the Detective Inspector Emmanuel Cooper series, however my enjoyment did wane a little throughout and I’m not entirely sure why. I listened to it as an audiobook, so perhaps I just lost interest at times depending on what I was doing (and how much my brain needed to concentrate on the other task) while listening to it?
I liked the South African setting, and the Detective Inspector, and Constable Shabala, and Zweigman, the “old Jew”. Naturally I deplored the attitudes of the time and place (1950s South African with the recent introduction of the “Immorality Law” which made it illegal for there to be marriage or any sexual relationship between races), but, if accurate, it was interesting to see how this was disregarded (in secret, of course) even by people who wished to appear to be upstanding figures of the community. It is hard to understand the mentality of the Afrikaners wanting “blood purity” so that Parliament enacted laws to try to achieve this, although Malla Nunn does a good job with some of her characters explaining their motivation, but I still can’t really comprehend it.
There was a clever twist at the end and I will be interested to read the second in the series. 3.5★
I liked the South African setting, and the Detective Inspector, and Constable Shabala, and Zweigman, the “old Jew”. Naturally I deplored the attitudes of the time and place (1950s South African with the recent introduction of the “Immorality Law” which made it illegal for there to be marriage or any sexual relationship between races), but, if accurate, it was interesting to see how this was disregarded (in secret, of course) even by people who wished to appear to be upstanding figures of the community. It is hard to understand the mentality of the Afrikaners wanting “blood purity” so that Parliament enacted laws to try to achieve this, although Malla Nunn does a good job with some of her characters explaining their motivation, but I still can’t really comprehend it.
There was a clever twist at the end and I will be interested to read the second in the series. 3.5★
This superior thriller written by the gifted Malla Nunn is the first in a series featuring Detective Emmanuel Cooper who plies his trade in the bleakness of Apartheid era South Africa. Navigating through racial tensions so poisonously thick he can almost taste them and fighting against a government that sees a communist behind every corner he's also hiding some secrets of his own that could be his undoing.
As the story begins Cooper has been called to the backwater town of Jacob's Rest on the border of South Africa and Mozambique where a well known (and supposedly well liked) Captain has been brutally murdered. Cooper must contend with the Captain's volatile posse of thug like sons, his zealot of a wife and the various Afrikaners and natives who don't have any interest in an Englishman invading their town.
A mystery like this, set in this part of the world and at this time is completely dependent on the author nailing both time and setting and Nunn manages both in spades. This really is "a beautiful place to die" and even Cooper with his calm, calculated attention to details and determination to do his job come hell or high water stops sometimes to smell the flowers. Nunn doesn't (pardon the expression) white wash anything. This place is beautiful and brutal and disgusting with its appalling, elitist and racist attitudes, the practices of its people, and its grim determination to stamp out "inferior" races through segregation and exclusion. Young women are bought and sold here. Valiant, brave and educated men must hide their religion from the world for fear of persecution. Even love is mandated or forbidden by the government.
The captain's death and the people behind it are the story here but the series grounds itself in the gritty, distasteful political culture and the backlash that results. Nunn never wants the reader to forget where they are. This is an unjust, uncaring world where the "good guys" not only don't win they're not allowed to based entirely on the color of their skin.
Cooper is an incredibly likable hero; noble to a fault but damaged from years of service in the army and personal losses. He's tireless in seeking the truth but doesn't get bogged down in a desperate thirst for "justice" that I've seen drive similarly written detective characters crazy. He understands the limits of his world and takes whatever justice he can find.
This is a murky, dark and deeply moving read. Violent but not grotesque. A lush and vibrant world with a decaying heart that you can smell when you breathe too deep. The end is a bitter pill to swallow and you'll want people to be punished who get off scott free but somehow its satisfying anyway because you know Cooper will always be there to fight the good fight no matter the outcome.
As the story begins Cooper has been called to the backwater town of Jacob's Rest on the border of South Africa and Mozambique where a well known (and supposedly well liked) Captain has been brutally murdered. Cooper must contend with the Captain's volatile posse of thug like sons, his zealot of a wife and the various Afrikaners and natives who don't have any interest in an Englishman invading their town.
A mystery like this, set in this part of the world and at this time is completely dependent on the author nailing both time and setting and Nunn manages both in spades. This really is "a beautiful place to die" and even Cooper with his calm, calculated attention to details and determination to do his job come hell or high water stops sometimes to smell the flowers. Nunn doesn't (pardon the expression) white wash anything. This place is beautiful and brutal and disgusting with its appalling, elitist and racist attitudes, the practices of its people, and its grim determination to stamp out "inferior" races through segregation and exclusion. Young women are bought and sold here. Valiant, brave and educated men must hide their religion from the world for fear of persecution. Even love is mandated or forbidden by the government.
The captain's death and the people behind it are the story here but the series grounds itself in the gritty, distasteful political culture and the backlash that results. Nunn never wants the reader to forget where they are. This is an unjust, uncaring world where the "good guys" not only don't win they're not allowed to based entirely on the color of their skin.
Cooper is an incredibly likable hero; noble to a fault but damaged from years of service in the army and personal losses. He's tireless in seeking the truth but doesn't get bogged down in a desperate thirst for "justice" that I've seen drive similarly written detective characters crazy. He understands the limits of his world and takes whatever justice he can find.
This is a murky, dark and deeply moving read. Violent but not grotesque. A lush and vibrant world with a decaying heart that you can smell when you breathe too deep. The end is a bitter pill to swallow and you'll want people to be punished who get off scott free but somehow its satisfying anyway because you know Cooper will always be there to fight the good fight no matter the outcome.
The book starts off as a police procedural with Cooper being send down to investigate what could be a hoax call. But it all goes south when the victim is discovered to be the local police captain, and owner of half the town. And Cooper is then outflanked by the local gestapo, and he starts uncovering layer after layer of secrecy in the dead man's double nay triple life ... until everything just explodes towards the end of the book.
The prose is clean, the South African way of life in the 50's is woven in skillfully, and Cooper himself while true to type as the damaged goods that is de rigeur to being a detective these days is not quite so gone as say Harry Hole ... and the supporting cast of Afrikaner, Coloreds, Blacks (funnily enough they speak in Zulu throughout the book not Xhosa) all come to life in clear cut portrayals that indelibly mark their times and ways without overtly seeming to do so.
It's a book that involves you deeply with it's portrayal of the complex jigsaw puzzle of relationships and attitudes, but the murder itself and the collateral damage inflicted on the innocents leaves you feeling conflicted about the way justice was finally served. What I really liked was the fact that while apartheid is all black and white on the surface if you'll pardon the pun, the way she dexterously uses the differences between the whites themselves mostly is what gives the book it's sense of moral authenticity more than anything else.
Cooper comes across as fairly likeable but frankly is nowhere as engaging as a main protagonist should be. I guess Nunn was trying to paint him as a half way decent man caught in a difficult time and place and it's only towards the end which explains his seeming ambivalence ... can't say more without giving it all while ... But while his procedurals aren't even mildly interesting, and his ability to handle situations even less so, there's something about his pragmatism, his willingness to walk the thin line between doing the right thing and taking risks over getting things done, and then finally the equanimity to take an incredible amount of punishment fo see it all through that wins you over by the end.
The prose is clean, the South African way of life in the 50's is woven in skillfully, and Cooper himself while true to type as the damaged goods that is de rigeur to being a detective these days is not quite so gone as say Harry Hole ... and the supporting cast of Afrikaner, Coloreds, Blacks (funnily enough they speak in Zulu throughout the book not Xhosa) all come to life in clear cut portrayals that indelibly mark their times and ways without overtly seeming to do so.
It's a book that involves you deeply with it's portrayal of the complex jigsaw puzzle of relationships and attitudes, but the murder itself and the collateral damage inflicted on the innocents leaves you feeling conflicted about the way justice was finally served. What I really liked was the fact that while apartheid is all black and white on the surface if you'll pardon the pun, the way she dexterously uses the differences between the whites themselves mostly is what gives the book it's sense of moral authenticity more than anything else.
Cooper comes across as fairly likeable but frankly is nowhere as engaging as a main protagonist should be. I guess Nunn was trying to paint him as a half way decent man caught in a difficult time and place and it's only towards the end which explains his seeming ambivalence ... can't say more without giving it all while ... But while his procedurals aren't even mildly interesting, and his ability to handle situations even less so, there's something about his pragmatism, his willingness to walk the thin line between doing the right thing and taking risks over getting things done, and then finally the equanimity to take an incredible amount of punishment fo see it all through that wins you over by the end.