White Leopard

Fans of classic hard-boiled PI fiction will relish Guillame’s first book to be translated into English. French attorney Farah Tebessi approaches ex-cop Solo Camara, who works as a PI in Bamako, Mali, for help after her younger sister, Bahia, gets into trouble. Bahia, who’s a law student in France, was about to catch a flight for Paris from the Bamako airport when she was arrested for transporting 13 kilos of cocaine in her luggage. Since Farah believes that “buying off people is the national pastime in Mali,” she asks Solo to bribe the examining magistrate in charge of the case in exchange for dropping it. Solo agrees and succeeds in getting Bahia freed. When Bahia turns up with her throat slit in the Niger River, Farah asks Solo to find the killers and eliminate them. A former cop who served as a police adviser in Mali, Guillame delivers a tale of high-level corruption that will resonate with James Ellroy readers. (Nov.)