Tag Archives: Margie Orford.

International crime fiction sometimes feels like a contest between the Scandinavians and the Irish. If so, the South Africans are closing ground on both of them.

Think of writers like Margie Orford, Roger Smith and Mike Nicol, just to name a few.

Although less well known, Swaziland born, Australia-based author Malla Nunn deserves a place among this group. Silent Valley is her third book, set in fifties South Africa and featuring the character of Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper.

Her first book, A Beautiful Place to Die (2008) won rave reviews. It involved Cooper investigating the murder of a prominent Afrikaner policeman Captain Willem Pretorius, in the small town of Jacob’s Rest on South Africa’s border with Mozambique.

Her second, Let the Dead Lie (2010) saw Cooper expelled from the police and reduced to working on the docks of Durban. It didn’t do nearly so well (although I’ve heard some very good reports about it).

Silent Valley sees Cooper back in the force and in familiar territory, investigating the murder of a young girl – the bride to be of a powerful, overbearing Zulu chief, in a remote part of South Africa. There’s a truckload of suspects, everyone from the head of the local police to members of the white family she worked for as a domestic, with a bit of black magic and sexual deviancy thrown into the mix for good measure.… Read more