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A Sister Conchita and Sergeant Kella Mystery
– Book I
G W Kent
Robinson (Constable &
Robinson)
23 June 2011/ ISBN 1849013403
Historical Mystery 1960 Solomon Islands
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Reviewed
by Rachel A Hyde
Sergeant Ben Kella could be a big man in the Solomon Islands as
he is an aofia, the hereditary peacemaker of his people. Instead
he is in the police force, and constantly in trouble with his superiors
for being a free spirit, and in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Charged with finding the whereabouts of a missing American anthropologist
he gets cursed by the islands’ version of a witch doctor and
finds himself embroiled with a young American nun when she discovers
a group of people burying a skeleton…
Books set in the Solomon Islands are pretty thin on the ground,
and this one is a first for the genre of historical mystery. Set
in 1960 when the islands are on the verge of gaining their independence,
this fascinating and very enjoyable novel is worth reading not only
for its story but also for an insight into a little-known place.
At first I thought that I would rather have read a novel set in
the islands today, but choosing to set it in 1960 gives the author
the chance to show us something special. He portrays a place poised
on the brink of modernity, yet very much a part of traditions stretching
back hundreds of years. The plot is engaging too, with plenty of
twists and turns, also giving us a glimpse of what life would have
been like during the Second World War. In fact there is so much
in this comparatively slim book that you almost need to put a rubber
band on it to stop it all bursting out. I hope that this is the
first installment of a very long series indeed, or the reading public
has no taste! |
