Synopsis
Ex-Scotland Yard cop Jake Moore’s career was cut short by a bullet; ten years later, he runs a game fishing business that is about to go broke. 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, the two men find themselves drawn into a deadly conspiracy involving local hoodlums, murderous ex-pats, and a mysterious and psychopathic kingpin who presides over a sickening trade in innocent human life.
Set amid the five-star luxury and Third World squalor of Kenya’s east coast, Bait introduces a new and unique crime-busting double act, and sets Nick Brownlee apart as a hot new talent on the crime scene.
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. (July)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.