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A beautiful young blonde was dead, and the suspect, my suspect, was an African male. I was travelling to Africa in search of his past. What I found there would either condemn or save him. As you can imagine my business was urgent.
How many times had I thought of Africa? Not many, I’m afraid. Yes, I knew of Africa. After all it was the land of my ancestors; a place I vaguely longed for without really wanting to belong to it. I might as well say it here: coming from the US there was a part of me that had come to believe it was a land of wars, hunger, disease and dirt even as my black skin pulled me towards it. So how many times had I thought of Africa? Not many, not in a real way.
The funny thing though was now that I was actually in a plane on my way to Africa I found myself surrounded by whiteness – the passengers, the crew and the pilots.
from: Nairobi Heat
Crime and Violence – Everywhere
Ishmael, a black, a colored, an African-American, was raised in Wisconsin by his parents, also black, also coloured, also African-American, to melt into the white US society. It worked: Ishmael became a successful detective of the Madison police department. As far as you may follow Ishmael is happy – set aside his grief about his sweetheart who left him when he became a serious cop.
This murder case concerning the gorgeous blonde lying dead on the doorstep of a home in the posh suburb of Madison leads him to Africa, to Kenya, to Nairobi. While trying to investigate about his case in the heat and mess of Nairobi Ishmael finds himself: it’s quite a long way, but … finally … So the murder case becomes a jigsaw piece on his way to a new way of life, to his black self, to a new future, to new and dangerous adventures … and finally to a wife.
While in the background there is Ishmael’s personal story and development there is crime and violence all over the place – not only in the US, but even more intense in Africa. Ishmael finds himself amid a case which is far bigger than he ever dared to think. It’s not only the murder of this beautiful young blonde in Wisconsin, but suddenly some of the recent cruel events in Africa like the Rwanda massacres and the genocide seem to play an important role.
Ishmael isn’t alone. When arriving in Nairobi David Odhiambo, called O, Ishmael’s counterpart at the Nairobi Police department, meets him at the airport. They become some sort of inseparable when investigating the murder case of the blonde … and later when they team up to become private investigators in Nairobi.
Nairobi is a frantic city where too many people do their own things. O knows all about it – and he knows which places and businesses in Nairobi to stay clear of. Foolish that Ishmael isn’t used to being cautious. Soon they get involved in trouble … Ishmael learns that in Nairobi firearms of all sorts and knives and machetes and whatever are a commodity and anybody uses them. There are corpses … Ishmael has to fight and to kill … simply to survive. Obviously it doesn’t matter: differently from the US he and O haven’t to explain anything … corpses simply seem to vanish into thin air.
Ishmael tries to uncover the truth behind the murder of the blonde and he dashes through Nairobi learning about middle class quarters – where O lives together with his wife – and slums. He visits strictly gated communities where the rich and famous live, he even admires one of the sumptuous houses of the colonial era where an Englishman lives who might have crucial information about … And there are the refugee camps where people from Rwanda hope for a better future …
At the end the gorgeous blonde from Wisconsin, who couldn’t be identified and wasn’t missed by anybody so far, is placed in Africa and her mission is revealed. She was on warpath to get revenge … Unfortunately she annoyed some people, powerful people, who were afraid that their wealth and their reputations might suffer damage. So she had to die. Ishmael and O learn a lot about the background which sprawls from Africa to the US – and anywhere in between. It’s an international business.
Ishmael decides to move to Africa and settles in Nairobi to become a private eye. O joins him. They work with negligible success, but they are happy … Then suddenly a case appears on the horizon even bigger than the case of the murdered blonde … and they get involved in international terrorism and counterterrorism and learn quite a lot about the private objectives of nations.
Unfortunately there are only two novels so far about Ishmael and his fast-paced life in the US and Africa … Maybe a follow-up will emerge one day …