Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Categories
Crime & mystery fiction

PRESENT DARKNESS

Malla Nunn

PRESENT DARKNESS, the latest in Malla Nunn’s Emmanuel Cooper detective series, is just out from Atria and it’s her best one yet! Set in 1950s, apartheid-riven South Africa, in a country deeply divided by apartheid, where the law is bent as often as it is broken, Detective Emmanuel Cooper fights against all odds to deliver justice.

Five days before Christmas, Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper sits at his desk at the Johannesburg major crimes squad, ready for his holiday in Mozambique. A call comes in: a respectable white couple has been assaulted and left for dead in their bedroom. The couple’s teenage daughter identifies the attacker as Aaron Shabalala— the youngest son of Zulu Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala—Cooper’s best friend and a man to whom he owes his life. The Detective Branch isn’t interested in evidence that might contradict their star witness’s story, especially so close to the holidays. Determined to ensure justice for Aaron, Cooper, Shabalala, and their trusted friend Dr. Daniel Zweigman hunt for the truth. Their investigation uncovers a violent world of Sophiatown gangs, thieves, and corrupt government officials who will do anything to keep their dark world intact. Malla Nunn was born in Swaziland, South Africa, and currently lives in Sydney, Australia. She is a filmmaker with three award-winning films to her credit.

Available products
Book Published 2014-06-03 by Atria/Emilie Bestler Books

Comments

Nunn sets her procedurals in 1950s, apartheid-riven South Africa, infusing the natural drama of crime-solving with the added tensions between races and cultures. The details Nunn provides can be wrenchingly revealing. For example, when a dying black man is discovered in the garden attached to the home of a white couple, the cop on the scene doesn’t want to use a blanket from inside the home to cover the man; his hesitation speaks volumes about race. His superior, Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper of the Johannesburg Major Crimes Squad, has to cover his own anger by saying they can burn the blanket later. In this, the fourth in the series, set in 1953, Cooper is put to the test when the youngest son of his best friend and frequent partner, Zulu Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala, is accused of the savage assault of a white couple, a high-school principal and his wife. The investigation is halted by Cooper’s sadistic superior, who wants a quick close to the case. Cooper’s persistence, against orders, takes the reader into very strange and corrupt territory indeed.

Malla Nunn’s books have it all: fast-paced, intricate storylines; an exotic setting in a dangerous era; a deeply flawed hero; and an Oscar-worthy cast of supporting characters.

In Nunn’s superlative fourth mystery set in 1950s South Africa (after 2012’sBlessed Are the Dead), a murder case puts Det. Sgt. Emmanuel Cooper, a mixed-race Johannesburg cop, in a difficult position. A savage break-in at the house of Ian Brewer, a high school principal, has left Brewer dead, his wife nearly so. The white couple’s 15-year-old daughter, Cassie, who escaped unscathed, asserts that she can identify the two attackers by their voices: black students who participated in an extracurricular program run by her father, one of whom, Aaron Shabalala, is the son of Det. Constable Samuel Shabalala of the Native Branch, a friend of the detective’s. Emmanuel is convinced that Cassie is lying, but his supervisor isn’t, making the search for the real killers especially urgent. Nunn’s descriptions of the impoverished township where the suspects live are particularly moving, but the true toll of apartheid is conveyed effectively throughout.