Dark Continent

This impressive series kickoff from British author Sherez, A Dark Redemption introduces Det. Insp. Jack Carrigan, a Scotland Yard veteran regarded as an oddball for his obsessive devotion to his work. Years earlier, after graduating from college, Carrigan and two friends took a vacation in Uganda that ended in tragedy. The shadows from that traumatic experience weigh more heavily on Carrigan after the savage murder of Grace Okello, a student of East African history, in her London flat. The victim was studying African warlords who have used revolutionary politics as a mask for their sadistic desire for power, and it appears her research could have been a threat to one of them. The action builds to a jaw-dropping resolution. Readers will want to see more of this convincingly flawed hero.  PW

buzzzz for Little Bee...

recommended read and a starred review by Booklist---Little Bee, smart and stoic, knows two people in England, Andrew and Sarah, journalists she chanced upon on a Nigerian beach after fleeing a massacre in her village, one grisly outbreak in an off-the-radar oil war. After sneaking into England and escaping a rural “immigration removal” center, she arrives at Andrew and Sarah’s London suburb home only to find that the violence that haunts her has also poisoned them. In an unnerving blend of dread, wit, and beauty, Cleave slowly and arrestingly excavates the full extent of the horror that binds Little Bee and Sarah together. A columnist for the Guardian, Cleave earned fame and notoriety when his first book, Incendiary, a tale about a terrorist attack on London, was published on the very day London was bombed in July 2005. His second ensnaring, eviscerating novel charms the reader with ravishing descriptions, sly humor, and the poignant improvisations of Sarah’s Batman-costumed young son, then launches devastating attacks in the form of Little Bee’s elegantly phrased insights into the massive failure of compassion in the world of refugees. Cleave is a nerves-of-steel storyteller of stealthy power, and this is a novel as resplendent and menacing as life itself.---Seaman, Donna Copyright 2008 BooklistDistributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. CKW