A review of Nairobi
Heat by Mukoma Wa Ngugi, Melville House, Brooklyn, NY 2011.
This book is a quick read crime/detective story along the
lines of books by Dashiel Hammett. It is, however, for the most part ,set in
Kenya. The hero is a black Chicago cop
who traces the perpetrators of a murder to Nairobi. There he is befriended by a Kenyan cop and
the two of them proceed to get shot at by legions of assailants as the plot
unravels. Of course, they shoot back.
Bodies are lying about everywhere with apparently no consequences for shooters
on either side. The main plot is
cleverly orchestrated involving Rwandan refugees, ruthless NGO personnel and
conniving businessmen. In some respects
the plot is quite feasible. Additionally, there is a boy meets girl subplot.
Throughout the story the Chicago cop mulls over his personal identity. How
American or how African is he? (This theme probably reflects the author’s own
quest as he, the author, is Kenyan, but raised in Chicago).
Although the author Mukoma Wa Ngugi, son of the famous Ngugi
wa Thiongo, should know better, he manipulated climate and geography in order
to suit the story. Fiction writers can
do that. In order to double entendre the title, he had the protagonist arrive at
Nairobi’s airport in the early morning amidst sweltering heat. Cognoscenti know that in the hours before
dawn, Nairobi is anything but hot. Later
in the story, the cop team flees to western Kenya driving non-stop for eleven
hours to a village near Busia, on the Ugandan border. Even a country bus can make that trip in
eleven hours, in a car it’s no more than six.
The joy of this story is in the reading of it. It is fast
paced and reality rarely intrudes. The
Kenyan setting is an added bonus.
No comments:
Post a Comment