Rainbow Bookstore Cooperative will host a book launch on November 14th for Nairobi Heat a debut novel by Mukoma Wa Ngugi, a Ph'D candidate in the English Department. The book launch is Saturday, November 14, 2-4 pm with more details available here.
When a beautiful blonde girl is found murdered on the porch of an African university professor in Maple Bluff, Madison, Wisconsin, hard-working detective Ishmael Fofona knows immediately that it will be the news event of the year.
What he cannot know however is that the discovery of the dead girl will change his life forever and that barely seventy-two hours after being called to the scene he will find himself on African soil, hunting for clues in a case that seemingly makes no sense. Why would Joshua Hakizimana – a hero of the Rwandan genocide, a man who had saved hundreds of people from the machetes of the genocidaires – kill a random white girl and then dump her body outside his house?
The answers, it would seem, lie in Africa. And there is only one way to get at them.
Mukoma wa Ngugi’s debut novel is a gripping and hard-hitting detective thriller that questions race, identity and class. Mukoma is also the author of a collection of poems "Hurling Words at Consciousness" (AWP, 2006) and is a political columnist for the BBC Focus on Africa Magazine. His essays and columns have appeared in the Guardian, International Herald Tribune, Los Angeles Times, South African Labour Bulletin, and Business Daily Africa, and he has been a guest on Democracy Now, Al Jazeera and the BBC World Service. He is son of the famed Kenyan writer, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.