Bait

Murder piled on grisly murder drives British author Brownlee’s uneven debut, a crime thriller set in contemporary Kenya, where expatriates and natives make their own destiny or are crushed by someone else’s. Former Scotland Yard copper Jake Moore, co-owner of a marginal sport fishing outfit in Mombasa, owes an Arab oil dealer $17,000 for diesel fuel because the country’s civil unrest has scared off “Ernies,” “pale-faced tourists who came to Kenya in search of big fish.” Jake; his fellow Brit partner, Harry Philliskirk; and Det. Insp. Daniel Jouma, possibly the only Kenyan cop not on the take, tangle with a variety of nasties, whose crisis-management skills are limited to personal disposal of their opponents. While the book occasionally provides terse, deadly insights into the local culture, it offers mostly predictable glimpses into the unsavory side of the dark continent. Still, Brownlee shows enough promise that readers can reasonably hope for more than just relentless brutality in the sequel. (July)