Hour of the Red God

Starred review from February 18, 2013
Former BBC journalist Crompton interweaves a complex whodunit plot with 2007 Kenyan politics in his spectacular fiction debut. Nairobi police detective Mollel, a single parent who lost his wife to the 1998 al-Qaeda bombing of the U.S. embassy, looks into the murder of a fellow Maasai tribe member, a woman whose genitals were freshly mutilated. Mollel’s less-than-honest boss, who quickly labels the victim a prostitute, directs him to wrap things up quickly. But the dogged Mollel follows the evidence wherever it leads him, even if it means stepping on the toes of the rich and powerful, including popular evangelist George Nalo, whose charitable organization, Orpheus House, works to get prostitutes off the streets. As a bitterly contested election nears, the pressure on the detective to let things be only increases. The surprising but fair-play solution to the mystery packs a wallop—and instantly elevates the author, now a Nairobi resident, to the first rank of African crime writers.

March 1, 2013
Female circumcision, baby selling, tribal conflicts and ballot-box stuffing unsettle life in Nairobi. When a Maasai prostitute is found butchered in Nairobi's Uhuru Park, Sgt. Mollel, a Maasai temporarily stationed at Nairobi Central CID, hops on his bike to survey the damage. Assisted by Kiunga, a Kikuyu, he traces the descent of the poor girl's body through storage drains that seem to begin on the grounds of Orpheus House, a shelter for the wayward where Wanjiku Nalo, the wife of charismatic preacher George Nalo, founder of his own mightily successful ministries, provides solace, late-term abortions and is possibly involved in a baby-stealing ring. She admits that Lucy, the dead girl, stayed at Orpheus House but denies knowing how she wound up dead. Lucy's pal Honey, whose stillborn baby was delivered by Wanjiku, insists that Lucy had a baby, the genital butchery was meant to cover up the birth, and her newborn was stolen from her at the behest of a politically influential client. Tracking the client leads Mollel and Kiunga to David Kingori, whose Equator Investments has ties to Nalo's ministry and a strong rooting interest in the Kenyan presidential race, which has become a battle royal between racist tribal leaders, governmental storm troopers and the mungiki, marauding gangs. In the process of uncovering who killed Lucy, Mollel also learns how election votes are switched, while desperately trying to outrun the street riots turning Nairobi into a war zone. Former BBC journalist Crompton's debut features a unique voice, an in-depth look at diverse Kenyan rites and political chicanery, and a hero who, one hopes, is just at the beginning of his fictional career.

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March 1, 2013
A young Nairobi prostitute is found murdered, her body mutilated. The case falls to Detective Sergeant Mollel. The gaunt Mollel, seemingly an ascetic, was once a Maasai warrior, and his stretched earlobes brand his ethnicity in a city in which politics are literally tribal. Following leads and theories, Mollel and his partner, Kiunga, move almost ceaselessly through the city of 10 million and come to recognize that two of Nairobi's most important people may be implicated in the crime. But a heated national election that has stirred tribal rivalries threatens to set Nairobi aflame. Crompton, a former BBC journalist, lives in Nairobi, and the election he describes (2007) was a real one. His debut novel combines a sinuous plot, a wonderfully complex and tragic protagonist, and a remarkable portrait of a city that is simultaneously exotic yet familiar (e.g., a murder victim who might have suffered female circumcision, modern office towers surrounded by an ocean of corrugated metal shacks, and a megachurch minister who slickly televises his Sunday services). All fans of international crime fiction will want to follow Mollel through Nairobi's mean streets.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)