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Rating: 
Summary: Excellent period whodunit set in 19th century Africa
Review: A long-neglected family trunk serves as a window into a highly atmospheric mystery set in and around an African mission in 1881. The murdered body of an unsavory Scottish surveyor in charge of a force of African workers is discovered, serving as breakfast for a local stork. It falls to 28 year-old ex-soldier Monteith Ferguson, seasoned veteran of India, to discover his killer. No easy task, given the dead man's penchant for double-dealing and the ease with which he offends both his mission neighbors and the natives on whose good will their lives depend. In this volatile mixture of misfits surviving in treacherous surroundings, suspicion falls on saints and sinners alike. The detective even suspects himself. Nor does it seem that the mission, threatened by waning support from its backers, can survive the murder of a notorious thief (or is he?)named Wanga. The villagers, holding the missionaries responsible, demand justice in the form of a human sacrifice, and prepare to lay savage visitation to the mission ... Characters are well-drawn and suspects masterfully developed and kept in constant suspicion, where they belong. Despite the sophisticated plot and its exotic setting, one need not turn back the pages in order to follow the story, whose momentum made me reluctant to put it aside. In the end the central clue, presented so obviously, has been forgotten as though overgrown by vines. Catanach possesses a droll wit but remains suitably opaque in the classic English tradition. Readers like myself, who enjoy Graham Greene, Eric Ambler and John LeCarre, will be glad to discover this author, too little known despite the warm praise his work has drawn from the New York Times and elsewhere.--G.W. Matsell
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