Audiobooks

Strange Gods

In early 20th century British East Africa, there are rules for the British and different ones for the Africans. Vera McIntosh, the daughter of Scottish missionaries, doesn’t feel she belongs to either group; having grown up in Africa, she is not interested in being the well-bred Scottish woman her mother would like her to be. More than anything, she dreams of seeing again the handsome police officer she’s danced with. But more grisly circumstances bring Justin Tolliver to her family’s home.

Justin Tolliver is on the brink of an enormous change. The younger son of an English peer –– that is, the son with no money and no prospects –– he had joined the police force in British East Africa, full of dreams of bringing his majesty’s justice to a dark and savage world. But it’s 1913, and with his faith in the British government in tatters, Justin is opting instead for life as an African farmer and a newly minted family-man. It is his wife, Vera, who has helped him put aside images of darkness and come to see Africa, instead, as all but lit from within. Even as Justin is embracing Africa, Vera’s faith in the land is being tested, as she is brought face-to-face with terrible brutalities and her own naiveté. There are murders, yes, and Justin and Vera will take a hand in solving them. But when the crimes are solved, and the killers brought to justice, Justin and Vera and eventually their young son will have to reckon with levels of injustice far beyond anything they had understood.

The audio for the first in my Africa series––Strange Gods––has been available for some time. The voice artist who narrated Vera and Tolliver #1 did such a marvelous job that I knew I wanted him to record the other books in the series.

Dennis Kleinman is a South African, living in LA, who has the right soul, the right voice, and ALL the right accents to do a superlative job of reading Vera and Tolliver. Audible chose him to read Strange Gods, and when I first heard his recording, I was stunned by the result. In Dennis’ voice, my own characters became even more real to me than they were in my imagination. The Scots, the English, the tribal people all sound exactly right to me when Dennis reads their dialogue. He also puts just the right emotional ring to what they are saying.

Once the audio rights to Idol of Mombasa and The Blasphemers reverted to me, Dennis went to work, doing his magic on characters that presented new challenges: Arab and Swahili voices, Midlands English, as well as tony British aristocrats. The results are superb.

The most dramatic and tumultuous period in Argentine history: Colonel Juan Perón, supremely powerful and despised more than any man in the country, has been forced out of office. Many people fear that his mistress, radio actress Evita Duarte, will use her skill at swaying the masses to restore him to power.

When an obscure Evita lookalike is brutally murdered, police detective Roberto Leary concludes that someone out to eliminate the popular star mistook the girl for Evita. The search for the killer soon involves the girl's employer, who is Evita's dressmaker, her journalist lover, and Pilar, a seamstress in the dress shop and a tango dancer. The suspects include a leftist union leader and a young Lieutenant who feels Perón has dishonored the Army. Their stories collide in this thrilling and sensuous historical mystery.