Michael Stanley: A Deadly Covenant

The eighth book in Michael Stanley’s enjoyable Detective Kubu series, set in Botswana, tells his origin story as a detective.  As readers, we have already come to love Kubu and his wife, Joy, so it’s a pure delight to read this book, which chronicles their early courtship and Kubu’s beginnings as a detective.  Kubu’s shyness and uncertainty with Joy only add to the human dimensions of his personality, a personality already well fleshed out in previous novels.

He’s not quite as uncertain on the job, though he’s junior enough to be uncertain that his superiors will listen to his ideas on a case.  His boss, Mabaku, sends his into the wilds of Botswana to observe pathologist Ian MacGregor (a Scot new to the country) as news that a cache of bones have been unearthed on a construction site. MacGregor will be processing the bones and Kubu is told to watch and learn. read more