Nairobi Heat by Mukoma Wa Ngugi

First published in South Africa in 2009; published by Melville House on September 13, 2011

A black police detective named Ishmael is surprised when a Nairobi taxi driver calls him a white man, but he's as out-of-place in Africa as any other American.  Ishmael is chasing clues in the murder of a blonde woman in Madison, Wisconsin's prosperous Maple Bluff neighborhood, where a Kenyan named Joshua Hakizimana claims to have found her dead on his front porch, the apparent victim of a heroin overdose.  Hakizimana has achieved some fame as an advocate for Rwandan refugees and doesn't seem the murderous type.  On the strength of an anonymous telephone call urging him to come to Nairobi because "the truth is in the past," the police chief rather improbably gives Ishmael permission to pursue the investigation in Kenya.  In Nairobi, Ishmael joins a detective named O.  As Ishmael and O pursue leads, they become targets of assassination and do a fair amount of their own killing while edging closer to a criminal conspiracy involving corruption and genocide that overshadows the lone death in Madison. 

While Nairobi Heat succeeds as a detective story (and quite a good one, once the surprising connection between Hakizimana and the dead woman on his porch is revealed), it is also the story of Ishmael's journey toward an understanding of his racial identity.  In addition to finding clues in Kenya, Ishmael finds something else -- not his roots, exactly, but a kind of serenity.  The novel explores an interesting racial dynamic:  some blacks, including his ex-wife, view Ishmael as a race traitor because he occasionally arrests black suspects, while some whites, seeing his black face in the police department, wonder why he's not in handcuffs.  In Kenya, O discusses at some length the relationship between color and justice.  Mukoma Wa Ngugi integrates this commentary into the story without slowing the novel's pace and, for the most part, without becoming too preachy (although some degree of preachiness is consistent with the personalities of Ishmael and O).

On the other hand, once Ishmael returns to Madison, the story begins to drag.   Ngugi is more sure-footed as he relates the sights and sounds of Nairobi.  His prose flows with the rhythm of the streets as he describes dancers and drinkers, taxis and slums, destitute refugees and wealthy landowners.  His take on America is less insightful.  When Ishmael investigates the murder and its implications after leaving Nairobi, Ngugi adds a twist to the plot that slows the story's momentum without returning a compensatory reward.  The KKK plays a role in the novel's ending that is entirely unconvincing, in part because the Klan doesn't have the kind of power or presence in Madison that Ngugi attributes to it.  A final discussion of race and class is a bit heavy-handed.

On balance, Nairobi Heat isn't perfect, but it's a quick and easy read that addresses serious issues while telling an entertaining, offbeat detective story.  An element of vigilantism that might be disturbing in other novels seems natural in this one.  Ishmael is an interesting character and the ending sets up the possibility of his return.  On the strength of this novel, I would probably read the next one if Ngugi decides to reprise the character.

RECOMMENDED

Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard

 

Published by Doubleday on September 20, 2011

James Garfield is most often remembered, if at all, as the president who was assassinated shortly after taking office.  Destiny of the Republic brings the dead president back to life.  This is not, however, a biography of Garfield.  Rather, it is a stirring account of American life and politics during the time of the Garfield presidency, not long after the conclusion of the Civil War, and of a presidential murder.  Garfield’s early years are sketched out in cursory fashion, his (sometimes troubled) relationship with and eventual devotion to his wife Lucretia is covered in only a few pages, and the death of his youngest child receives little more than a mention.  Rather than focusing on Garfield’s personal life, Candice Millard devotes her attention to political divisions within the Republican Party (particularly Garfield’s battles with New York Senator Roscoe Conkling and the vice president he controlled), as well as Garfield’s frustration with the obligations of the office that he had little desire to hold.

The president’s assassin is given nearly as much attention as the president.  There are times when the book has the feel of a thriller, as the ominous Charles Guiteau weaves in and out of the text, inching himself closer to the president.  Millard depicts Guiteau as a con man with delusions of grandeur whose madness was characterized by a growing belief that his plan to assassinate Garfield was divinely inspired.

The assassination occurs at the book’s midway point.  Millard then treats us to a different kind of political battle, a medical drama about doctors who vie for the opportunity to treat the president and who, ironically, become responsible for his death.  Arrogant in their refusal to believe in the existence of germs, American doctors rejected evidence that antiseptic surgical conditions increase a patient’s chance of survival.  The dirty finger and unwashed probes inserted into Garfield’s wound in search of a bullet sealed the president’s fate, infecting an injury that Garfield would likely have survived if left untreated.  The book concludes with an account of Garfield’s autopsy and Guiteau’s trial.

Destiny of the Republic succeeds on two levels.  First, it is informative.  Millard fills the text with interesting facts culled from a variety of primary and secondary source materials, including frequent quotations from contemporaneous news stories and Garfield’s diary, to set the scene for Garfield’s presidency.  We learn enough about the man to understand that he would have made an admirable president.  It’s interesting to note that Garfield, despite his love of farming, was a scholar, a professor of literature and ancient languages, well versed in mathematics and keenly interested in science, the sort of man who, if running for office today, would likely be branded an “elitist.”  Garfield’s speeches condemning slavery and the unequal treatment of black Americans are eloquent and moving; the book is worth reading for those passages alone. 

Second, the book is entertaining.  Millard’s prose is lively.  She captures personalities as if she were writing a novel.  She seasons the narrative with humor and creates tension as the events leading to Garfield’s encounter with Guiteau unfold.  Despite its attention to detail, the narrative moves at a brisk pace.

My sole complaint concerns the attention that Millard gives to Alexander Graham Bell.  Granted that Bell’s life intersected with Garfield’s more than once, and that Bell worked diligently to invent a device that would pinpoint the location of the bullet lodged in Garfield’s body, the full chapter and parts of several others devoted to Bell’s life seem out of place, as if Millard felt the need to pad her relatively short book with filler.  I would have preferred a more thorough discussion of the political aftermath of the shooting.  Millard tells us of its unifying effect on a nation that emerged from the Civil War still deeply divided, but provides few facts to support that proposition.  A more extensive look at the impact of the assassination on the country would have been more germane than the pages devoted to Bell’s life before and after his invention of the telephone.

That criticism aside, Destiny of the Republic is perfect for readers (like me) who want to know about a key moment in American history without being subjected to mind-numbing detail or leaden prose.  Millard’s book is enlightening and enjoyable.  Garfield is a dead president I’m happy to have met. 

RECOMMENDED

The Train of Small Mercies by David Rowell

Published by Putnam on October 13, 2011

It's tricky to write a novel that weaves together the separate stories of an ensemble cast. Done well, the different viewpoints cohere into a meaningful whole. (I thought Colum McCann did it masterfully in Let the Great World Spin, using a tightrope walk as the focal point to intertwine stories of disparate lives.) Done poorly, the technique makes a novel read like a collection of unrelated stories. The Train of Small Mercies falls somewhere in the middle.

Robert Kennedy's funeral train is the novel's binding thread. On his first day as a porter, Lionel Chase is assigned to the train as it departs from New York. Maeve McDerdon has traveled to Washington to interview for a position as the Kennedys' nanny, an interview that is cancelled after Bobby's assassination. Delores King in Pennsylvania doesn't want her husband to know that she's taking their daughter to see the train but suffers a misfortune that threatens to expose her plan.

In New Jersey, young Michael Colvert (having returned home after his noncustodial father took him for an unauthorized visit) and his friends reenact the Kennedy assassination in their back yard. Edwin Rupp, his wife, and another Delaware couple plan to watch the train pass, but Edwin is more interested in his new above-ground pool (and in his friend's wife). The train will pass the home of Jamie West, a young man who returned from Vietnam with a missing leg, on the day he's being interviewed by a local reporter.

For many Americans, Bobby Kennedy represented hope in a time of turmoil. An unpopular war, urban unrest, and changing views of race and gender contributed to a shared anxiety that was heightened by the assassination of Martin Luther King. David Rowell conveys a sense of a nation in crisis at the moment of Kennedy's death, yet his characters (realistically enough) are distracted by their own problems. Unfortunately, their stories are too often half-formed, amounting to vignettes of life on the East Coast, interesting but lacking significance.

The narrative jumps maddeningly from character to character. Perhaps David Rowell believes readers have such limited attention spans that they can only handle a few paragraphs of character development before they itch to move on to someone else. The technique gives the story a fragmented quality that made it impossible to feel as if I truly understood any of the characters. None of their stories are resolved -- at least two are left hanging in the midst of a personal calamity -- making it even more difficult to form an appreciation of their connection to a larger story. While Rowell's characters are not without depth, the fragmented nature of the storytelling undermines the novel's themes.

The Train of Small Mercies is at its best when it explores marriage and relationships in the 1960s. Delores yearns for independence but lacks the courage to tell her politically conservative husband that she plans to watch the funeral train. Maeve has achieved an uncertain independence by leaving her family in Boston (the city in which they made a home after leaving Ireland) but, despite enjoying the power of flirtation, feels isolated in Washington, having befriended only the hotel concierge.

Other characters exist as sketches more than fully formed characters. Through his conversations with his father and other porters, Lionel serves as a reminder of the importance of Bobby Kennedy to black Americans, but he has little life of his own. Jamie is a stand-in for the soldiers who returned from Vietnam with maimed bodies and broken spirits, but he has no significant role in the story beyond his iconic status. We know almost nothing of Michael beyond the pain that resulted from his parents' broken marriage. He lies down in the path of the oncoming train in a scene that lacks the drama Rowell must have intended, in part because we know too little about him to understand his motivations. The Rupps and their swimming pool contribute almost nothing to the story.

Rowell writes deft prose. He clearly had the germ of a strong novel in mind. Unfortunately, the germ didn't grow into a more complex organism. Enough of the story works to merit a recommendation, but this isn't a novel I can recommend with enthusiasm.

RECOMMENDED

Ghost on Black Mountain by Ann Hite

Published by Gallery Books on September 13, 2011

Part One of Ghost on Black Mountain combines a ghost story with that of an abused woman who must decide whether and how to confront her abuser.  The tale is told in the first person by Nellie Clay.  Nellie’s mother warns her not to marry Hobbs Pritchard, but Nellie is seventeen, innocent, and certain she will lose her chance at love if she doesn’t accept Hobbs’ proposal.  After a one day courtship, Nellie marries Hobbs and moves into his house on Black Mountain.  She quickly realizes that Hobbs is a hard, ill-tempered, unloving man.  Nellie’s problems are compounded when a young girl named Shelly, dispatched by Hobbs’ aunt to help Nellie clean the house, tells Nellie that a ghost is roaming its rooms.  Nellie soon encounters not just the ghost in the house, but another who lurks in the woods.  Nellie eventually puzzles out the connection between the two ghosts and discovers parallels between her life and the life of Hobbs’ deceased mother.

Part One is written in a convincing first person Southern Appalachian voice, although it occasionally betrays an eloquence that is inconsistent with Nellie’s unsophisticated grammar.  The story plods a bit when Nellie starts to keep a diary, filling pages with “how could God let this happen to me?” musings.  Several well executed scenes let us see that Nellie is unhappy; reading her hand-wringing diary entries adds nothing new.  I was also unconvinced by Nellie’s reaction to the haunting; for a person who claims not to believe in ghosts, Nellie seems surprisingly unperturbed when they show up and start chatting with her.

Part Two is told in the first person by Nellie’s mother, Josie Clay.  Josie tells us that we need to know her story to understand how Nellie “got herself into the mess she did,” but Josie’s story actually gives us little insight into Nellie’s life beyond showing us Nellie’s early exposure to yet another ghost.  Part Three is narrated by Shelly Parker, the girl who helped Nellie clean her house.  Shelly has a gift for seeing haints but isn’t happy about it when Hobbs’ various victims begin to pester her about Nellie.  Shelly’s narrative, like Josie’s, does little to advance the story, and she all but disappears from the novel after Part Three concludes.

The first half of Ghost on Black Mountain is more remarkable for its setting and atmosphere than for the story it tells.  The novel’s second half is better.  Part Four is narrated by Hobbs’ lover, Rose Gardner. Although Rose is only fourteen, hers is the first story told by an educated character; the change of voice was welcome.  She’s the one person who remains unchanged by her association with Hobbs and is, I think, the most interesting character.  Iona Harbor narrates Part Five.  She’s fifteen in 1955 (more than a dozen years after the conclusion of Part Four), living with her family in Georgia.  The connection between Iona’s story and the rest of the novel becomes apparent only after we learn that Iona’s mother (who narrates Part Six) carries with her a secret past.  An improbably coincidental meeting in Part Five joins Iona to one of the characters introduced in Part Four while Part Six brings the story full circle. 

What begins as a seemingly predicable ghost story evolves into an unconventional novel of greater depth.  Ann Hite’s characters and winning prose style impressed me immediately, but I didn’t warm to the story until its midway point. Fortunately, the addition of Rose and Iona to the cast saves the novel from mediocrity.  The coincidental meeting in Part Five is essential to the plot but requires an even greater suspension of disbelief than the chatty ghosts.  I’m not a fan of convenient coincidences but, in this case, it makes for a good story.

Themes of forgiveness and redemption permeate the novel’s concluding chapters, but the need to face the consequences of one’s choices is the book’s strongest theme.  After a slow start (frankly, I think the novel would have been better without the ghosts), Hite won me over with her appealing story and memorable characters. 

RECOMMENDED

Illegal Alien by Robert J. Sawyer

Published by Ace on December 1, 1997

There are a number of similarities between Illegal Alien, published in 1997, and Robert Sawyer's more recent Calculating God. In both novels, aliens who are apparently amiable travel to Earth. In both, crazy humans make trouble for the aliens. And human and alien characters in both discuss evolution and debate the likelihood of divine creation. Where that discussion becomes the focus of Calculating God, it is a sideshow for most of Illegal Alien, a novel that reads like a John Grisham courtroom drama with the addition of an alien defendant. Still, alien concepts of divinity do become a significant plot point in Illegal Alien, adding to the sense that Illegal Alien was a test run for (or perhaps inspired) Calculating God.

A handful of aliens known as Tosoks come to Earth seeking help for an engine problem that has stranded them in our solar system. Two key members of the team assigned to interact with the aliens are Frank Nobilio, the president's science advisor, and Cletus Calhoun, an astronomer who hosts a popular show on PBS. While parts are being fabricated to repair the alien ship, the aliens go on tour. They happen to be in California when Calhoun is found dead, his leg having been amputated and some of his organs removed during a crude dissection. A Tosok named Hask is arrested for murdering Calhoun. He's defended by a Johnnie Cochran clone named Dale Rice. The story turns into both a whodunit and a whydunit. Sawyer's answers to those questions are clever and satisfying.

I give Sawyer credit for doing his homework. His explanation of legal procedures is accurate and his consideration of defense strategies is sound. As courtroom dramas go, this one is about average, but the alien angle gives it an offbeat appeal. Through Hask and other characters, Sawyer indulges in fairly astute commentary on a variety of social issues, including the American system of criminal justice, racism and xenophobia, and the causes of crime, while feeding the reader useful information about evolution and astronomy.

Sawyer has some fun with cameo appearances: Barbara Walters interviews Hask; O.J. Simpson prosecutor Marcia Clark walks through the courthouse; broadcast journalist Miles O'Brien interviews Calhoun; Steven Spielberg attends a reception for the Tosoks. His invented characters (both human and alien) aren't as fully formed as those in Calculating God; they seem like pencil sketches of real people. The novel is nonetheless worth reading for its engaging plot, one that should appeal to fans of science fiction and legal thrillers alike.

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