Nairobi Heat

For fans of smart foreign crime books, an action-packed crime story in an unusual setting—Kenya—and rooted in fascinating African history

In Madison, Wisconsin, it’s a big deal when African peace activist Joshua Hakizimana—famous for saving hundreds of people from the Rwandan genocide—accepts a position at the university. Then a young girl is found murdered on his doorstep.

For local police Detective Ishmael—an African American in an “extremely white” town—it seems like the kind of crime that happens in an area where the Ku Klux Klan still holds rallies. But then he gets a mysterious phone call: “If you want the truth, you must go to its source. The truth is in the past. Come to Nairobi.”

It’s the beginning of a journey that will take Ishmael to a place still vibrating from the surrounding genocide, where big-oil money rules and where the local cops shoot first and ask questions later.

And although it’s the land of his ancestors, it becomes a disorienting and terrifying quest through the slums of Nairobi, a place where knowing the truth about history can kill you.