Burn - Nick Brownlee
Paperback: 416 pages
Publisher: Piatkus Books
ISBN-10: 0749929065
ISBN-13: 978-0749929060
25 Jun, 2009
In Daniel Jouma and Jake Moore, Nick Brownlee has created a team so different – so compelling – those who pick this novel up will be delighted at how reluctant they will be to put it down again.
Just when Inspector Daniel Jouma believes calm has returned to Mombasa, all hell has broken loose. Bodies are piling up in the morgue, Jouma's new boss wants answers - and the mayor wants him out. Meanwhile, bulldozers are hurtling towards Jake Moore's stomping ground. Ever the hero, the maverick cop turned fishing-boat skipper faces up to the might of Kenya's most ruthless - and dangerous - developer. Then a chilling secret, thought long buried in the ashes of a deadly inferno, brings the crime-busting duo together once again.
It is the subtleties that lie within Brownlee’s writing that make his storytelling stand out. A little gesture here, a little word there and suddenly the reader is in the thick of the action. Added to this is the author’s intrinsic sense of place, creating a Kenya that becomes more and more familiar to those who have only ever seen in it in the company of David Attenborough.
Deftly crafted prose with a superb range of characters and these vivid descriptions all help to create an electrifying pace in a second novel that is sure to follow up the success the author enjoyed with his Mombasa-based debut. Without question, Nick Brownlee is fast establishing himself as one to watch.
Chris High
break the rules as I see fit.” - Chris High 2003.