The Hour of the Jackal

Jaumann's police procedural (the first of his works to be translated into English) suffers from overly dramatic storytelling and clunky sentence structure, though the latter could be blamed on a poor translation. The book investigates a series of murders that all relate to the real-life 1989 assassination of Namibian independence leader Anton Lubowski. The heroine is the plucky Clemencia Garises, a 31-year old detective who is hot on the trail of the murderers. Throughout the book, Clemencia follows an anonymous killer plagued with a mysterious malady. Clemencia eventually deduces that the killer is suffering from a terminal illness, basing her conclusion on the weak supposition that such a "mixture of desperation, determination and utter ruthlessness" would only belong to someone without a future. A dramatic bedside confrontation, the release of an abducted spouse, and a passionate confession should lead to an intriguing story, but the awkward and affected writing style make this book a chore to get through. (Nov.)