Sundowner Unbuntu

by Anthony Bidulka
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of the reasons I read this series is to figure out what the titles mean and I enjoy the mysteries as well.. Each one so far has been a little trip to an interesting place. Russell Quant is an amusing fellow with a tongue-in-cheek approach to life and he takes on the case of a missing person that eventually takes him to South Africa, then to Botswana and finally Zambia with dragging footsteps following him all the way. The reader makes some connections long before Russell does in this particular case and I for one was less forgiving at the end.

The dragging footsteps belong to a vicious person who had no remorse as he brutally went about damaging people and needed more retribution that psychological help. Russel got in the way of this and some of the retribution fell on his own head. This was because of unbuntu.





UNBUNTU - the Africans believe that a community must live harmoniously together, with out the care and watchfulness of their neighbors they are nothing. If a young foolish boy steals something the community cannot let him get away with it, because that would be like stealing from every one, so the thing is always returned. If a bad thing is done to one person in the community by another  a retribution is exacted in some way - unbuntu. In short the community takes care of itself.

Amuse Bouche

The first book in this series   Amuse Bouche
These are special appestizers that are intended to amuse the mouth

Aquavit

The Second  Flight of Aquavit

Tapas

The Third  Tapas on the Ramblas
 Spanish Appetizers eaten on a special street





The Fourth   Stain of the Berry

Snake

When you are handling wild things it is wise to never forget the inherent danger of messing with Mother Nature. A young woman known as Eve had a nightclub act in which she fondles and uses in her act as an erotic prop. One morning she is found dead with her pet python wrapped around her neck.

The case is given to Trompie Kramer, an Africaaner  and his partner Sergeant Zondi. They have been very busy with a case of multiple cases in which shopkeepers of small stores have been gunned down at point blank range for no apparent reason. The witnesses are few, and those who did see something would prefer to keep mum. The inhabitants of this part of town have no love for the police. The police are serious in their intent to stop these massacres even though they are occurring in the wrong part of town as it were.



South Africa during the apartheid era is beautifully portrayed in this novel. The mystery genre is one in which all aspects of society can be examined and included in an interesting story. In SNAKE, one of the crimes being investigated by the team of Afrikaaner Kramer and Bantu Zondi  involves the white population with clues leading to members of the higher social classes. The second set of crimes being investigated by these two men in falls in the poorer sections of town and what they often referred to as the nonwhites which includes people from Greece and Portugal and India.

James McClure does a good job of highlighting many of the injustices and iniquities of the time and in his subtle way suggests how many of the prejudiced notions were hogwash, while at the same time shows examples of the strengths of the different cultures. Nonetheless there's definitely an excellent sense of time and place in the 1960s in South Africa.