Mũkoma wa Ngũgĩ’s Nairobi Heat was heralded as “the work of a genius craftsman and wordsmith” by New Africa Magazine. In Killing Sahara we once again join Ishmael Forfona – the world-weary US detective – and O – his irrepressible Kenyan counterpart – as they set up their sleuthing business together in Nairobi.
When a body is discovered half-eaten by animals in Ngong Forest, Ishmael and O are called in as consultants by the Kenyan police. For this body is not any body. Not anybody at all, in fact. The forest is notorious as a place of execution – the great and the not so good of the Kenyan underworld almost always eventually wash up there with a bullet in them – but none of the crime bosses are MIA and no one seems to know anything about the body in Ngong. What starts out as a simple case of identifying a corpse will lead Ishmael and O across continents and deep into a plot to overthrow the Kenyan government. Written in Wa Ngũgĩ’s distinctively fast and furious style, it promises to be a hell of a ride.