cover image Salamander Cotton

Salamander Cotton

Richard Kunzmann, . . St. Martin's Minotaur/Dunne, $24.95 (305pp) ISBN 978-0-312-36034-4

South African author Kunzmann clearly establishes himself as a major league talent with his second book (after 2006's Bloody Harvests ) to feature Johannesburg DI Jacob Tshabalala. Investigating the savage murder of Bernard Klamm, an elderly mining boss with an extensive collection of child pornography, Tshabalala quickly learns that Klamm is survived by his long-estranged ex-wife, Henrietta Campbell, and that the couple lost their daughter decades earlier to another killer. When Campbell asks the inspector to recommend a private investigator to delve into that old crime, Tshabalala taps a retired officer and friend, Harry Mason. Mason soon becomes the book's central focus as he travels to the isolated site of Klamm's asbestos mines to uncover the solution of both murders. With surprising ease, Kunzmann evokes South Africa of both the 1960s and the early 2000s while building a richly textured police procedural around a twisty but plausible whodunit. Not many authors, let alone new ones, have succeeded as Kunzmann has in creating a three-dimensional world, peopled with memorable characters. (Nov.)