Critics' Opinion:
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Published Oct 2017
336 pages
Genre: Mysteries
Publication Information
Michael Stanley's Dying to Live is the sixth crime novel to feature the humble and endearing Detective Kubu, set against the richly beautiful backdrop of Botswana.
A Bushman is discovered dead near the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Africa. Although the man looks old enough to have died of natural causes, the police suspect foul play, and the body is sent to Gaborone for an autopsy. Pathologist Ian MacGregor confirms the cause of death as a broken neck, but is greatly puzzled by the man's physiology. Although he's obviously very old, his internal organs look remarkably young. He calls in Assistant Superintendent David "Kubu" Bengu. When the Bushman's corpse is stolen from the morgue, suddenly the case takes on a new dimension.
"Starred Review. David 'Kubu' Bengu, an assistant superintendent in the Botswana CID, investigates a particularly baffling murder in his sixth, and best, outing. {Stanley] keeps the intriguing plot twists coming." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. Stanley once again mixes strongly developed characters, puzzling plot twists, and a textured African setting in an international police procedural with heart and soul that will appeal to fans of Kwei Quartey and Alexander McCall Smith." - Library Journal
"The sixth installment in Stanley's franchise (A Death in the Family, 2015, etc.) is the best yet, with both an ingenious mystery and a deeper and more textured depiction of modern Botswana and Kubu's piece of it." - Kirkus
"A fantastic read. Brilliant!" - Louise Penny, New York Times bestselling author of The Long Way Home
This information about Dying to Live was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Michael Stanley is the writing team of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip.
Both are retired professors who have worked in academia and business. Sears is a mathematician, specializing in geological remote sensing. Trollip is an educational psychologist, specializing in the application of computers to teaching and learning, and a pilot. They were both born in South Africa.
They have been on a number of flying safaris to Botswana and Zimbabwe, where it was always exciting to buzz a dirt airstrip to shoo the elephants off. They have had many adventures on these trips including tracking lions at night, fighting bush fires on the Savuti plains in northern Botswana, being charged by an elephant, and having their plane's door pop open over the Kalahari, scattering navigation maps over ...
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