Why Prequels? - Guest Post by Michael Stanley

Michael Stanley: Why Prequels?
 
In many series, there comes a point where the author decides to write a prequel—a book that shows the series protagonist before the role she or he plays in the series. The benefit to readers is that they learn how the character was shaped by earlier events and relationships. A powerful example is the Charles Todd prequel novella The Piper, where we see Inspector Ian Rutledge during the First World War and its devastating effect on him that molds him for the whole series.

When we started writing A Carrion Death, we didn’t plan that Kubu would be the protagonist. As debut novelists, we heeded the advice of experienced writers, who said we should write about what we knew. So, as academics, we planned that a brilliant young ecology professor would discover a body in the Kalahari that had been left in the desert for hyenas to devour, and go on to solve the mystery. The ecologist would realize at once that the death was no accident because the body he found was naked. That made it a likely murder, and we needed a police detective to investigate. 
 
So David Bengu, from the Criminal Investigation Department in Gaborone, appeared. A very large man with the nickname Kubu, meaning hippopotamus in the local language, he climbed into his Land Rover, well provisioned with sandwiches and drinks. As he headed into the desert, he listened to his favorite opera arias and sang along (badly). He also had time to muse about how a Bushman school friend had shown him how to look beyond the superficial, and to see clues of hidden things. That was the spark that made Kubu want to become a detective. He would train himself to look beyond the obvious.
 
By the time this larger-than-life character had visited the scene of the crime and interviewed the men who’d found the body, he’d made it clear to us that he had to be the main character. That came as a complete surprise. We thought we were in charge of the story. 
 
Five more novels followed where Kubu was the key investigator. During the series, we discovered he was smart and good at solving murders, and he became more solid, more three-dimensional, but there was nothing that explained how he’d gone from school to being the star detective in the Botswana CID. It was not just a hole in his background, but, in a way, a gap in his character.
 
We wanted to fill that gap and perhaps discover a younger, less self-confident Kubu, who might be an intriguing character in his own right. As a bonus, we could pull the director of the CID, Jacob Mabaku, out from behind his desk and show his background and achievements, and why he became director. 
 
Diamonds are key to Botswana’s prosperity. We thought there might be a backstory involving Debswana, the Botswana diamond giant owned jointly by the powerful De Beers group and the government. Setting the story twenty years in the past would be appropriate since that was the height of the diamond boom. What about a massive diamond robbery that could shake Botswana’s credibility as a safe, stable, country? Immediately, things started to take shape. The diamond heist takes place and suddenly everyone in the CID is thrown into the case, even Kubu, the raw detective in his first week on the job. Facets of Death, the first Kubu prequel, was on its way.
 
As we wrote the story, we watched Kubu develop, having insights, but also making the mistakes that only experience can avoid. He earns respect, but also opprobrium. Facets of Death was a journey of exploration for us. We learnt a lot about how Kubu became the CID’s best detective and about who he is as a person. We also discovered that we liked this young man with his insecurities. And we liked his boss as an insightful detective whose instincts about solving a case were matched by his instincts in mentoring Kubu. 

At the end of Facets of Death, we realized we were only at the beginning of the journey that led to A Carrion Death. Kubu is painfully shy and far from having a real girlfriend let alone a wife. He and Mabaku are not friends or even colleagues, but rather superior and junior, mentor and mentee. We enjoyed these “new” characters and wanted to follow them on their journey. So we decided to write another prequel, one that chronologically would come after Facets of Death.
 
We both love the Okavango Delta area of Botswana, a wonderful network of waterways and wildlife where the Kavango River loses itself in the Kalahari Desert. The Okavango is potentially threatened by excessive use of the water from the river before it reaches the delta. What, we wondered, would be the effect of a major water project being set up just south of Shakawe where the river enters Botswana from Namibia? 
 
We are also fascinated by the cultures of the Bushman peoples and they have featured in a major way in three of our books—A Carrion Death, Death of the Mantis, and Dying to Live. Originally spread over most of southern Africa, they were gradually driven into the arid desert areas as both white and black settlers moved into the lands they roamed and persecuted them. We postulated a massacre of Bushmen that had taken place far enough in the past to be hidden, but recently enough for the discovery to be a threat to the perpetrators.
 
During the story, Kubu and Mabaku become colleagues, and Kubu and McGregor become friends. As for Kubu and his future wife, Joy, well, read the book. 
 
The Kubu of A Deadly Covenant is not the Kubu of Facets of Death. Nor is he the Kubu of A Carrion Death. But he’s getting there.

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Michael Stanley is the writing team of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. Both were born in South Africa and have worked in academia and business.

On a flying trip to Botswana, they watched a pack of hyenas hunt, kill, and devour a wildebeest, eating both flesh and bones. That gave them the premise for their first mystery, A Carrion Death, which introduced Detective David ‘Kubu’ Bengu of the Botswana Criminal Investigation Department. It was a finalist for five awards. The series has been critically acclaimed, and their third book, Death of the Mantis, won the Barry Award for Best Paperback Original mystery and was shortlisted for an Edgar award. Deadly Harvest was shortlisted for an International Thriller Writers award.

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A Deadly Covenant

While digging a trench for a new water project, a backhoe operator unearths the skeleton of a long dead Bushman. Kubu and Scottish pathologist, Ian MacGregor, are sent to sort out the formalities, but the situation rapidly gets out of hand. MacGregor discovers eight more skeletons of Bushmen including women and children. However, the locals deny any knowledge of the event. When an elder of the village is murdered at his home, the local police believe it was the result of a robbery gone wrong. Kubu thinks otherwise. So does an elderly woman who believes it was the work of Mami Wata, a powerful river spirit. 

When she dies in an apparent crocodile attack, suspicions rise.

Things become still more complicated when a mysterious Bushman appears at the massacre site, collapses, then disappears again, but seems connected to the murders in some way. 

Kubu’s boss, Assistant Superintendent Mabaku, joins them as accusations of corruption are levelled at the water project, and international anger over the massacre of the Bushman families builds. But how do the recent murders link to the dead Bushmen? As they investigate, they uncover a deadly covenant made many years before by an unknown group, and they begin to fear that their own lives may be in danger.