Move Over Nordic Noir. Here Comes the Sun: Guest post by Michael Stanley

Michael Stanley:
Move Over Nordic Noir. Here Comes the Sun

Two years ago, we—a couple of crime writers who set our tales in Africa—went to the Icelandic Noir conference in Reykjavik. We arrived as fans of the subgenre known as Nordic Noir. And so we remain. But something happened at that gathering that got our goats.

It wasn’t the Scandinavian authors so much who miffed us, but rather the editors, the translators, the critics, and the garden-variety book pundits who kept differentiating Scandinavian Noir from “ordinary crime fiction.” The message was clear to those of us who write crime in sunny climes: Nordic Noir writing was special. What we wrote was ordinary.

What?

The first time we heard that distinction so stated, we rolled our eyes. But when the same words were repeated as panels came and went, that “what?” turned to “WHAT?” We vowed to throw down the gauntlet. To challenge the notion that only one variety of setting made for superior crime novels.

Within a few months, support came from Iceland in the person of our dear friend Yrsa Sigurdardottir, author of brilliant (despite the gloomy settings) Scandinavian mysteries and thrillers. In blurbing Michael Stanley’s forthcoming book, she wrote, ‘Under the African sun, Michael Stanley’s Detective Kubu investigates crimes as dark as the darkest of Nordic Noir. Call it Sunshine Noir, if you will – a must read.’ And there it was—the brand name for our challenge to the worldwide, years-long tsunami of Nordic Noir fiction.

The best way to launch the new trend, we thought, was to show off a panoply of locations. Fortunately, unlike Nordic gloom, sunshine is not localized on our globe. To this end, we have collected new, original short stories from seventeen wonderful writers from around the world, who set their stories in hot, sunny places. Sunshine Noir very well might be the most diverse array of stories in the history of crime anthologies. The voices, the settings, and the plots of the collection take readers to deserts in both hemispheres, beachfronts and ports along the equator, tropical islands, and interior jungles. Historic Istanbul and Mombasa figure into the mix, as does steamy Singapore. There are even a couple of Scandinavian villains to make a tongue-in-cheek point.

For all the fun and friendly competition that we hope to unleash with the Sunshine Noir challenge, we think it addresses a real issue. The field of crime fiction is crowded with many, many worthy authors. A few superstars, whose books go directly to the bestseller lists, are extremely well known and widely read. At the same time, there are also scores of mid-list writers whose work is excellent, admired by their fellow authors, and praised by critics, but whose existence is not well known, even to avid readers of the genre.

In times past, independent bookstore owners and clerks took a keen interest in discovering new fiction voices. Knowing their customers, they would recommend the little known writers. With thousands of such possible champions around the country, a less-than-famous author had a chance of building a readership. Not so anymore, now that so many Indie bookstores have gone out of business. At the same time, publishers—squeezed for profits—have abandoned efforts to publicize their mid-list books, leaving it to authors to make the effort. Nowadays, short of a film deal that actually results in a hit movie (the odds are about that same as being hit by lightening), all but already famous authors must rely on personal appearances and whatever mix of social media noise they can manage, to make themselves known.

Recently, the craze for Nordic Noir made this self-promotion easier for authors entering that sub-genre. With a built-in interest in all crimes Scandinavian, with critics and bloggers covering the field, and fans following the fad, many new authors easily found buyers for their work. We applaud this.

However, we find the rationale for the craze doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. When asked why Scandinavian crime writing stands out, pundits give a couple of reasons: They say “The settings of the stories enhance their effect because they intensify the psychological depth of the protagonists.” That is certainly true of some Nordic crime novels, but not all. And these qualities are certainly not exclusive to stories from the gloomy northern climes. Or they say “The landscape becomes a character in the story.” This is true of almost all vivid mysteries and thrillers, regardless of where they are set.

So, in the hopes of starting a trend of our own, we offer an intriguing alternative to the unrelenting gloom of those northern settings where real crime rates are low because it’s too cold to go outside, and it’s difficult to pull a trigger with gloved hands. Rather we want to remind readers that the shadows are darkest where the sun is brightest—places where tempers are short and crime flourishes.

Noir film and crime fiction were born in sunny California. Those early examples find their legitimate descendants in the stories in Sunshine Noir. Characters caught in dark doings in hot, sun-filled places. Thrillers in Yemen, the Sahara, Ethiopia, Puerto Rico. Murder mysteries in Botswana, Guadeloupe, Arizona, Singapore, Nigeria, Ghana, New Orleans, Istanbul.

Sunshine Noir proves the point made by Tim Hallinan in his Preface to the anthology: “The bright, warm, lush world is a greenhouse for evil.” 

Move Over Nordic Noir! The following HOT writers are gunning for you:

Leye Adenle, Annamaria Alfieri, Colin Cotterill, Susan Froetschel, Jason Goodwin, Paul Hardisty, Greg Herren, Tamar Myers, Barbara Nadel, Richie Narvaez, Kwei Quartey, Jeffrey Siger, Michael Stanley, Nick Sweet, Timothy Williams, Robert Wilson, and Ovidia Yu.  Edited by Annamaria Alfieri and Michael Stanley

A Taste of Africa: AKUkBUk: Post by Michael Stanley

Today I welcome back Michael Stanley. Michael Stanley is the writing team of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. Both are retired professors who have worked in academia and business. Sears is a mathematician, specializing in geological remote sensing. Trollip is an educational psychologist, specializing in the application of computers to teaching and learning, and a pilot. They were both born in South Africa. They have been on a number of flying safaris to Botswana and Zimbabwe, where it was always exciting to buzz a dirt airstrip to shoo the elephants off. They have had many adventures on these trips including tracking lions at night, fighting bush fires on the Savuti plains in northern Botswana, being charged by an elephant, and having their plane’s door pop open over the Kalahari, scattering navigation maps over the desert.. These trips have fed their love both for the bush, and for Botswana. It was on one of these trips that the idea surfaced for a novel set in Botswana. Their books include Deadly Harvest, Death of the Mantis, Goodluck Tinubu (A Deadly Trade) and A Carrion Death.

Michael and Stanley:
A TASTE OF AFRICA: AKUkBUk

Assistant Superintendent David “Kubu” Bengu is the main character of our detective series that is set in the land-locked country of Botswana in Southern Africa.

Kubu is a large man with a large appetite. His nickname “Kubu” means hippopotamus in the local language, so you get the general idea. He enjoys food and wine and is often found frequenting Gaborone’s eating establishments. If it comes to a choice of quantity or quality, Kubu always chooses quality – as long as the quantity is sufficient!

Kubu is so big that his wife, Joy, is always trying to put him on a diet. Kubu often eats the salad or whatever she gives him, then sneaks out for what he deems a real meal – hamburger, steak, or whatever. Usually with his favorite daytime drink, a steelworks, or a glass of wine, if he can afford it, in the evening.

The food in his hometown, Gaborone, is reasonably eclectic for a small city, with fine Portuguese and Brasilian fare, as well as delicious Botswana steaks. Of course, there is fast food, which Kubu disdains, and a variety of ordinary restaurants with normal fare.

Kubu is particularly fond of African food or, at least, food that has become known as African. One of his favorites is bobotie – a lightly-curried ground-lamb (or beef) casserole containing fruit, such as raisins, grated apple, or apricots. Its origins are from the Malayan slaves brought to Cape Town by the Dutch in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.

Even if you do not normally like curries, you will enjoy this delicious dish.

2 pounds (900 gms) ground lamb or beef
1 slice bread
3 cups (700 mls) milk
4 eggs
1 medium yellow or white onion chopped
1 – 2 tablespoons (15 – 30 gms) curry powder
1 tablespoon (15 gms) brown sugar
1 teaspoon (5 mls) salt
½ teaspoon (2.5 mls) ground pepper
¼ cup (60 mls) lemon juice
1 tart apple grated
1 cup (225 gms) seedless raisins
½ cup (125 gms) slivered almonds
Several bay leaves

• Put the bread into a bowl containing all the milk. Let stand.

• Lightly brown the meat in a skillet, breaking up any chunks. Transfer to a large container with a slotted spoon.

• Cook the onion in the remaining fat in the skillet until translucent. Don’t burn!

• Add the curry powder, salt, sugar, and pepper. Cook for 2 minutes. Add the lemon juice. Cook for 3 minutes. Pour the mixture over the meat.

• Take the bread out of the milk and squeeze out the milk back into the bowl. Put the bread with the meat.

• Add raisins, almonds, apple, and 2 eggs to the meat. Combine. (If you use your hands to do this, it feels great and you can lick your fingers afterwards!)

• Pack the mixture into a casserole dish.

• Combine the remaining two eggs with the milk and pour over meat.

• Push a few bay leaves into the meat.

• Cook for 45 minutes at 300° F (150° C).

It is served over yellow rice – white rice with a touch of turmeric and a handful of raisins – with mango chutney on the side. Leftovers are great hot or cold. Kubu likes to put them in pita bread with sour cream or have them as a filling in an omelet. Yummy.

We have now pulled together a number of Kubu’s favourite recipes in a cookbook, titled A Taste of Africa. The idea for the cookbook and the name KUkBUk came from one of our readers, Vincent Moureau, in Belgium. We love the name, and thank him for coming up with such a wonderfully bad pun!

Now you can enjoy Kubu’s favorite food 

and 

Help alleviate the book famine in Africa 

The KUkBUk is available at Createspace or at Amazon in the States and Europe. The price is about $5.00 depending where you are.

We will donate all proceeds to the wonderful Books for Africa charity (booksforafrica.org), based in St. Paul, MN. Last year alone, it sent over two million books and hundreds of computers to schools, universities, and libraries throughout Africa. 

KUkBUks also make great stocking stuffers or little gifts to friends.

A TASTE OF AFRICA: MICHAEL STANLEY

I love the award winning Michael Stanley Kubu series set in Botswana.. well, I love both Stan Trollip and Michael Sears, partners in crime who craft this series together as Michael Stanley.  They've both been at my home in Berkeley for Literary Salons, and I've joined up with them at various mystery conventions. Stan splits his time between Minnesota and Knysna, South Africa, and Michael lives in Johannasburg, South Africa, and they've both spent plenty of time in the country of Botswana.

Retired South African professors, they have worked in academia and business. Sears is a mathematician, specializing in geological remote sensing. Trollip is an educator, interested in how computers can improve teaching and learning, and a pilot. They have been on numerous flying safaris to Botswana and Zimbabwe, where it was always exciting to buzz dirt airstrips to shoo the elephants off. Their many adventures include tracking lions, fighting bush fires, being charged by an elephant, and losing their navigation maps over the Kalahari when their aircraft door popped open. These trips have fed their love both for the bush, as well as for Botswana.

Books in the series: A CARRION DEATH; THE SECOND DEATH OF GOODLUCK TINUBU (A DEADLY TRADE); DEATH OF THE MANTIS, DEADLY HARVEST.

Michael Stanley: A Taste of Africa

Our protagonist, Assistant Superintendent David “Kubu” Bengu, is a large man by any standards, and he loves to eat. It is not by accident that his nickname “Kubu” means hippopotamus in the local language of Botswana. He may appear large, slow, and placid, but like his namesake is dangerous when roused.

About six months ago, we received an email from Vincent Moureau, a Kubu fan in Brussels, Belgium. Not only did he suggest that we put together a small cookbook of Kubu’s favorite foods, but he also proposed the very catchy title of KUkBUk. What a great pun! We were intrigued.

The cuisine of southern Africa has had a variety of influences. The staple diet of the black population revolves around corn meal, which is made into a dry porridge called pap. Dry pap is held in the fingers and used to eat a meat stew or a tomato-onion sauce. It is now part of a braaivleis (barbeque).

The Dutch brought slaves from Malaya and other eastern countries to the Cape in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries. Their delicate curries are now part of the national cuisine.

The British brought typical English cooking to South Africa – roasts, steak and kidney pies, fish on Fridays, and over-cooked vegetables. Fortunately (from a culinary perspective), they also brought tens of thousands of laborers from India to work on the sugar cane plantations on South Africa’s east coast. So delicious hot curries are also on most menus.

Although food plays a big role in Kubu’s life, there are only two cooking scenes in our first four books. In THE SECOND DEATH OF GOODLUCK TINUBU (A DEADLY TRADE outside North America), the eccentric camp cook, Moremi, makes a very traditional South African dish of Malay heritage called bobotie, while being watched by his tame go-away bird. At the end of DEATH OF THE MANTIS, Kubu has to make good on a pledge he gave to his wife, Joy, to help a little more on the domestic scene. So he cooks his first meal ever – a completely non-traditional meal of sweet and sour pork. Despite several near disasters, he manages to produce the meal – at least a reasonable facsimile of it – a mere two hours late. Fortunately Joy is touched by Kubu’s efforts, and the meal is deemed a success.

So what does Kubu like to eat? Kubu is very cosmopolitan in his food choices (although he dislikes tripe, which is a traditional Botswana dish), and he’s willing to try any type of cuisine once. He would claim that the quality of the food is of prime importance to him. Joy would probably interject that quality is important only if there is sufficient quantity.

So you get the picture. Meals need to be big! Kubu’s preference is to have a multi-course meal, with starters, main course, and dessert, liberally lubricated with the best wine he can afford which, on an Assistant Superintendent’s salary, is usually ordinary table wine.

A favorite appetizer is chicken livers peri-peri. It is a rich, usually generous dish of cooked chicken livers marinated in a peri-peri sauce. As far as we know, peri-peri originated in Mozambique and is a spicy concoction of lime juice, vinegar, garlic, paprika, and dried chilies. It can be quite hot, which Kubu likes. The chicken livers are spread on buttered brown bread. When all the livers are gone, the remaining sauce is perfect for mopping up. Ideally Kubu would like a dry Riesling as an accompaniment.

For the main course, Kubu enjoys above all a huge steak, preferably a rump steak cooked medium rare, smothered in monkey-gland sauce (Don’t gag! It’s not from monkeys!) and surrounded by French fries.

Apparently monkey gland sauce got its name at the Savoy Hotel in London and was named in honor of a Russian-born French scientist, Dr. Abrahamovitch Serge Voronoff. Voronoff became famous for his treatment to reverse the ageing process in humans – by grafting monkey testicle tissue onto human testicles. Even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had a professor in one of his Sherlock Holmes stories inject himself with monkey-gland extract.

One of the staff at the Savoy Hotel introduced the sauce at the Old Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg. It became a hit and has remained popular in South Africa ever since.

If available, Kubu would choose a heavy South African Cabernet Sauvignon to quaff with the steak.

To round out the meal, Kubu would probably choose something simple like vanilla ice cream (3 scoops) smothered with hot chocolate, but a malva pudding or a melktert (milk tart) would also be acceptable. These last two are traditional farm desserts in South Africa.

Finally he’d enjoy a cup of coffee with hot milk, followed – for the purely medicinal purpose of settling the stomach, of course – by a decent South African brandy.

We have received several emails from readers, worried that if we let Detective Kubu continue to eat the way he has been, he is likely to suffer a heart attack. Joy is also concerned about Kubu’s weight and has made him promise to have a salad for lunch. Kubu, of course, dutifully complies but, since Joy didn’t say only a salad, he augments the meager contents of the lunch box she gives him with something more substantial – such as a steak.

The KUkBUk idea was such a good one that we have put together an e-book with recipes for many of Kubu’s favorite African dishes, including monkey gland sauce and his preferred non-alcoholic drink, the steelworks, made from kola tonic, lime juice, ginger beer, and Angostura bitters. 

We also commissioned the very talented Danish artist, Tao Wedfall Lydiksen, to create four cartoons of Kubu enjoying his food and wine. We’d be delighted if you try out a few of the recipes. Let us know if you like them at michaelstanley@detectivekubu.com.

Bob appetit and cheers!

To order A Taste of Africa by Michael Stanley, go Here.

BOURBON STREET BOOKS: HarperCollins Publishers

HarperCollins has launched Bourbon Street Books, a new line of paperback mysteries.

BOURBON STREET BOOKS will publish all types of mysteries and will feature paperback originals, reprints, backlist titles, and reissued classics. The launch will begin with two paperback originals: The Hollow Man, a debut by British author Oliver Harris, and Blood Line, the 7th book in the Anna Travis series by international bestselling author Lynda La Plante, both publishing on October 23rd.

Bourbon Street Books will also bring back into print Dorothy L. Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey with Harriet Vane series for the launch on October 16th, including Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, Busman’s Honeymoon, and Gaudy Night.   Nick Drake’s Egypt: The Book of Chaos will release as a trade paperback in December under this new line.

For the winter 2013 season, Bourbon Street Books will be reissuing four Mary Kay Andrews novels — Happy Never After, Homemade Sin, To Live and Die in Dixie, Every Crooked Nanny ― all of which were originally written under her real name, Kathy Hogan Trocheck, and will now be published under Mary Kay Andrews for the first time in March. Nicola Upson’s next entry in her Josephine Tey series, Fear in the Sunlight, will be published in April.  The new book in Michael Stanley’s acclaimed Detective Kubu series, and a spy thriller called The Geneva Option by debut author Adam LeBor will publish under this new line in the summer 2013 season.

Michael Stanley Literary Salon in Berkeley: Out of Africa II

Monday, October 10, 7 p.m., Berkeley, CA:  
Literary Salon with Michael Stanley (the writing team of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip).

Join Mystery Readers NorCal for an evening of murder and mystery and show and tell with the incredibly entertaining and knowledgeable mystery authors known as Michael Stanley. Stan Trollip is bringing a special warrior kit to expand their talk. Stan and Michael write together across continents. Their novels, set in Botswana, feature Detective Kubu. Both Michael Sears and Stan Trollip are retired professors who have worked in academia and business. Both were born in South Africa.

Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip have been on a number of flying safaris to Botswana and Zimbabwe, where it was always exciting to buzz a dirt airstrip to shoo the elephants off. They have had many adventures on these trips including tracking lions at night, fighting bush fires on the Savuti plains in northern Botswana, being charged by an elephant, and having their plane’s door pop open over the Kalahari, scattering navigation maps over the desert. These trips have fed their love both for the bush, and for Botswana.

Their latest novel is Death of the Mantis:

When a Kalahari ranger is found dead in a dry ravine, his corpse surrounded by three Bushmen, the local police arrest the nomads. Botswanas Detective Kubu Bengu investigates the case and is reunited with his old school friend Khumanego, a Bushman and advocate for his people. Khumanego claims the nomads are innocent and the arrests motivated by racist antagonism. The Bushmen are released, but soon after, another man is murdered in similar circumstances. Are the Bushmen to blame, or is it a copycat murder?

Then there is a third murder. Again it points to the Bushmen. Kubu journeys into the depths of the Kalahari to find the truth. What he discovers will test all his powers of detection and his ability to stay alive ...

Please make a comment with your email address if you'd like to attend

Partners in Crime: Michael Stanley

Continuing the Partners in Crime series here on Mystery Fanfare, I asked Stan Trollip, one half of the writing team known as Michael Stanley to Guest Blog about writing collaboration.

Michael Stanley is the writing team of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. Both are retired professors who have worked in academia and business. Sears is a mathematician, specializing in geological remote sensing. Trollip is an educational psychologist, specializing in the application of computers to teaching and learning, and a pilot. They were both born in South Africa.

A Writing Collaboration
by Stanley Trollip (half of Michael Stanley)
www.detective kubu.com
Stanley@detectivekubu.com

“I couldn’t do it!”

“I don’t know how you do it!”

“Who writes, and who edits?”

These are exclamations Michael and I often hear from other authors as we travel on book tours.

“How do you do it?” is a question asked of us by everyone.

When we first started meeting people - readers and authors - after our first novel, A Carrion Death, came out in 2008, we were surprised by these questions. It seemed so natural to us to work together. Both of us were educators by profession, both professors. Michael is a mathematician, very interested in mathematics education. I was a professor of educational psychology, interested in using computers to improve teaching and learning. At its core, education is all about collaboration – between teachers; between learners; and between teachers and learners.

Furthermore both of us are fans of brainstorming as a problem-solving strategy, and have used it extensively in our professional lives. So it never occurred to us NOT to collaborate. It was only later we heard that conventional wisdom dictates that writing collaborations work for non-fiction, but not for fiction.

So both of us believe that collaborating improves our end product; that our books would not be as good if either one of us had written them alone. But quality is not the most important benefit of collaboration for us. Working together is so much fun. We spend hours talking, arguing, cajoling, usually over Skype since we live so far apart, and usually with a glass of wine at hand. We cannot imagine the loneliness of writing novels alone with nobody to bounce ideas off, nobody to critique what you have just written. Neither of us think we could do that.

So how does it work?

The book that went the most smoothly was The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu (A Deadly Trade outside North America). So let me describe it first.

In early 2007, after we had finished A Carrion Death, we spent a couple of weeks at Michael’s house in Johannesburg and a week at mine in Knysna, on South Africa’s south coast. We have found that being physically in the same location works best for us when creating the plot of our next novel. We brainstorm, throw around ideas, conjure up characters and locations, decide who is to be killed, and by whom, plan red herrings. All of the normal plotting strategies.

What is wonderful about having someone else involved is that everything is immediately subjected to external scrutiny. If I have a cute idea or want a character that reminds me of someone I know, Michael instantly questions whether it fits the plot or whether it is just satisfying a personal whim. And vice versa. We draw pictures and mind maps, discuss how the reader is going to view each aspect of the plot, and build up our characters’ personalities and motives.

After about a month of work, we wrote a short outline of the book – only a few pages long – with a brief description of what would happen in each chapter. And we prepared a timeline that told us what happened when.

When we finished the manuscript 18 months later, we compared it with the original outline and found the two to be very close.

The planning and writing of A Carrion Death was very different. Neither of us had written fiction before, and we hadn’t written together. So we had a great deal to learn. We started writing with only the idea of the opening scene – a body is left for hyenas to devour; some people stumble on the body before the hyena has finished demolishing it; the perfect way to get rid of a body has failed. After that, we sort of made up the plot as we proceeded. This, needless to say, resulted in many dead ends, errors of plot, unnecessary red herrings, and so on. Eventually we finished the manuscript after 3 years. Then it took another 2 months after our editor had looked at it.

We are close to finishing our third manuscript – tentatively titled Death of the Mantis. We have had more difficulties with this than with the second book, partly because we found we needed to make a significant plot change after starting writing, partly because the plot is more difficult to pull off. It will end up taking nearly two years to finish.

So far I have discussed the high-level aspects of collaboration – the plotting, etc. How does it work from day to day?

At any point in the process, Michael and I discuss, usually over Skype, what comes next in the story. This can range from a scene to several chapters. One of us decides to write it – sometimes because of our knowledge of the content, sometimes because we have the time. Once the draft is finished, the other gets to read and edit it. A few hours to a few days later, the writer gets the edited copy (everything is done electronically, including the mark-up). The draft will now contain a myriad of comments and suggestions, ranging from suggested wording changes to major issues about the content to new ideas to be considered. It is at this point that one’s ego gets challenged. Michael may dislike ideas I thought were terrific or make significant suggested changes to writing I thought was wonderful. Ouch!

But this is the power of collaboration. A solitary writer does not have the same access to a reader who is honestly critical – most friends say they like everything we write – which is not helpful, because what we write is often bad. Moreover, the feedback comes quickly – we sometimes can have three or four iterations of a piece in a day.

After each iteration, there is less to discuss, less to fix, until we are both satisfied. Only occasionally are we unable to reach agreement. Our strategy then is that whoever wrote the first draft gets to keep what they wrote. “The editor will take care of it if it’s bad,” we say to each other, knowing that it’s not really true. But the approach works and the book is better for it.

You may ask whether there are any downsides to collaboration. In terms of the writing partner, if you are willing to leave your ego behind, there is no downside that we have found. The only negative thing that may result from collaborating is that a manuscript takes longer to complete – both of us have to agree before it moves forward.

So, I am a great fan of collaboration – it works well for Michael and me, but I acknowledge that it may not work for everyone.

From my side, the greatest benefit that has accrued from collaborating with Michael is that we are closer friends after writing three manuscripts together – and we were good friends when we started.

A Steelworks: Michael Stanley's Drink recipe

Mystery Readers Int'l's NorCal Chapter was lucky enough to have Stan Trollip the other night. Stan is one half of the writing team of Michael Stanley, the author of the Detective Kubu mystery series set in Botswana (A Carrion Death, The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu). Stanley's Botswana is very different from that of the 'other' mystery writer of Botswana. Stanley's Botswana involves the harsh realities of life-- the animals and the people. Detective Kubu seems slow and gentle, but like his namesake the Hippo (Kubu is Hippo in Setswana), he can be ferocious. Not unlike Stan Trollip and Michael Sears, the writing team, Detective Kubu enjoys good food, music and drink.

Inspector Kubu's favorite drink when he's on duty and can't drink alcoholic beverages (wine and beer) is a Steelworks. Kubu drinks them ice cold and often two at a time. Stan Trollip brought all the fixing and mixed drinks for the group at our Literary Salon Sunday night. I found the drink incredibly refreshing, and I think you will, too. Here's the recipe direct from Michael Stanley. Thanks, Stan.

Steelworks

1 shot of Rose's Kola Tonic (available at African Hut)
A splash of Angostura Bitters to taste (available at any liquor store)
Top up with ginger BEER (not ALE)
Always add ice at the end-- not before adding ingredients

Variations: You can also use half ginger beer, half soda water. You can also add a shot of Rose's Lime Juice.

Michael Stanley & Detective Kubu: August 2

Mystery Readers Int'l NorCal chapter is proud to host Michael Stanley, author of the Detective Kubu series set in Botswana, next Sunday night, August 2 at 7 p.m. (Berkeley, CA)

O.K. if you know anything about this terrific series, you know that it's written by the team of Stan Trollip and Michael Sears. We will have Stan Trollip at the At Home (Literary Salon) in Berkeley.

Both Trollip and Sears are retired professors who have worked in academia and business, specializing in the application of computers to teaching and learning. They were both born in South Africa. They have been on a number of flying safaris to Botswana and Zimbabwe, where they say it was always exciting to buzz a dirt airstrip to shoo the elephants off. They have had many adventures on these trips including tracking lions at night, fighting bush fires on the Savuti plains in northern Botswana, being charged by an elephant, and having their plane’s door pop open over the Kalahari, scattering navigation maps over the desert. These trips have fed their love both for the bush, and for Botswana.

How they decided to write together and the mechanics of writing with a partner will be one of the topics discussed next week. The evening is certain to be entertaining.

I was privileged to have Stan Trollip on my "Around the World with Janet Rudolph" panel at Bouchercon last October, and he's a fabulous raconteur. He was telling a tale of his experiences in Botswana about the charge of an elephant, a harrowing experience, to say the least, when the lights went out in our meeting room. Stan continued his story, and I must say that I felt like we were 100 people sitting around the campfire listening to scary stories. No body moved, no body left. Eventually the lights came back on, and we were glad to find there were no elephants amongst us.

Having read the first book in the series, the award nominated A Carrion Death, I can tell you that Michael Stanley tells quite a different tale of Botswana that the 'other' mystery author who sets his books there. It's a gripping novel that will keep your attention throughout--great characterization, setting and plotting. Stanley's latest mystery is The Second Death of Goodluck Tinubu (North America)/A Deadly Trade (elsewhere), and I'll be diving into that this week. Can't wait.

Stan Trollip will be in Berkeley at my home on August 2 at 7 p.m. He'll enlighten the group about writing with a partner, Botswana, his experiences, and many other topics. All are welcome, but space is limited. Please RSVP.

Can't make it? Be sure and read both of these great novels. Maybe you'll be lucky enough to hear Stan Trollip or his alter ego at another time.

Bouchercon Panel

Just got my Bouchercon panel assignment, and it's terrific. Many of you know that I love mysteries set in other places. As Emily Dickinson wrote, "There is no frigate like a book/ To take us lands away." My panel aptly titled Been Around the World: Travel the globe with Janet and friends will do just that on Saturday October 11, 2008 at the World Mystery Convention in Baltimore, MD.

My panelists include Charles Benoit (India, Thailand, Egypt), Jason Goodwin (Turkey), Arnaldur Indridason (Iceland) and Michael Stanley (Africa). I can't think of a better group of mystery authors. Not only will we travel the globe together, but we'll also go back in history for some of the discussion.

So join me, as we travel the globe on October 11 in Baltimore. O.K. here's the bad news. This panel will start at 8:30 a.m., EDT. That's 5:30 am. PDT for me! If you're coming to Bouchercon, hope you'll join us. If not, I'm bound to write about it. Any questions you'd like me to ask this distinguished list of authors, let me know.