Let the Dead Lie

Informationen zum Autor Malla Nunn Klappentext The second in a crime series set in 1950's South Africa when apartheid laws were first introduced, Detective Emmanuel Cooper now returns to face murder, passion, and corrupt South African politics. Emmanuel Cooper’s life has an “ex” through it: ex-soldier, ex-detective sergeant, and ex-white man. He now works undercover surveillance on the seedy Durban docks to make a living, documenting police corruption for his old boss. All of that changes when he discovers the body of a brutally murdered young errand boy, forcing Emmanuel out of the shadows. He decides that he has no choice but to elude the police in order to conduct his own unofficial investigation. But after two more identical murders, Emmanuel becomes the police department’s prime suspect. Finding the serial killer is even more urgent than before. He dives into the Durban underworld for answers and finds the murders are part of something bigger than he could have imagined, and is soon deep into the politics within South Africa. Under the pressure of new racial segregation laws Emmanuel must find the killer before the Durban police pin the crimes on him. Full of suspense and an unraveling mystery, Nunn offers a glimpse into South African politics during the 1950s and living under the racial segregation laws enforced by the National Party. 1 DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA, MAY 28, 1953 THE ENTRANCE TO the freight yards was a dark mouth crowded with rows of dirty boxcars and threads of silver track. A few white prostitutes orbited a weak streetlight. Indian and coloured working girls were tucked into the shadows, away from the passing trade and the police. Emmanuel Cooper crossed Point Road and moved toward the yards. The prostitutes stared at him, and the boldest of them, a fat redhead with a molting fox fur slung around her shoulders, lifted a skirt to expose a thigh encased in black fishnet. “Sweetheart,” she bellowed. “Are you buying or just window-shopping?” Emmanuel slipped into the industrial maze. Did he look that desperate? Brine and coal dust blew off Durban Harbor and the lights of a docked cruise ship shone across the water. Stationary gantry cranes loomed over the avenue of boxcars and a bright half-moon lit the rocky ground. He moved to the center of the yards, tracing a now familiar path. He was tired, and not from the late hour. Trawling the docks after midnight was worse than being a foot policeman. They at least had a clearly defined mission: to enforce the law. His job was to witness a mind-numbing parade of petty violence, prostitution and thievery and do nothing. He scrambled over a heavy coupling and settled into a space between two wagons. Soon, an ant trail of trucks would roll out of the yard, packed to the limit with whiskey and cut tobacco and boxes of eau de cologne. English, Afrikaner, foot police, detectives and railway police: the smuggling operation was a perfect example of how different branches of the force were able to cooperate and coordinate if they shared a common goal. He flicked the surveillance notebook open. Four columns filled the faintly ruled paper: names, times, license plate numbers and descriptions of stolen goods. Until these cold nights in the freight yard he’d thought the wait for the Normandy landing was the pinnacle of boredom. The restlessness and the fear of the massed army, the bland food and the stink of the latrines: he’d weathered it all without complaint. The discomforts weren’t so different from what he’d experienced in the tin and concrete slum shacks his family had lived in on the outskirts of Jo’burg. This surveillance of corrupt policemen lacked the moral certainty of D-day. What Major van Niekerk, his old boss from the Marshall Square Detective Branch, planned to do with the information in the notebook was unclear. “Jesus. Oh, Jesus …” A groaned e...

Détails du produit

• Auteurs: Malla Nunn
• Edition: Washington Square Press
• Langues: Anglais
• Format d'édition: Poche format B
• Sortie: 28.04.2010
• EAN: 9781416586227
• ISBN: 978-1-4165-8622-7
• Dimensions: 135 mm x 210 mm x 25 mm
• Thèmes: Emmanuel Cooper; Emmanuel Cooper; Washington Square Press
• Catégorie: Littérature > Suspense