With Thanks to Hyenas and Hippos by Michael Stanley

 The Writing Team of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip

Probably, many writers have had a spark that set them off on their first novel. With us it was hyenas. It all happened in the Savuti area of the great Chobe National Park in Botswana. It’s a magnificent wilderness area rich with the big game of Africa. Including hyenas - big packs of spotted hyenas.

If you think hyenas are scavengers, you’d be right most of the time. But big packs make fearsome hunters, rushing into herds of herbivores and dragging one down in the confusion. After that, the prey is quickly killed and eaten. In Savuti, we saw an adult wildebeest pulled down and totally consumed in a matter of hours - including the bones. That gave us the idea for the perfect murder—kill the victim, then put out the body in the bush for hyenas to devour. The next day it would be gone. How would the police prove who the murderer was? No body, no forensics, no case. It seemed a great premise for a murder mystery, and that evening, over a glass or two of wine, we decided that one day we would write one.

However, with other things going on in our lives, it was not until many years later that we put pen to paper or, rather, fingers to keyboard. We had no idea how much we needed to learn, nor how long such a project was going to take. We went blithely ahead.

Michael wrote a draft of the first chapter and sent it off to Stanley. In the chapter, a game ranger and an ecology professor discover a human body being eaten by a hyena in the Kalahari. Fortunately for the story, the hyena had only started its meal. The game ranger thinks it’s a lost tourist, but the ecologist quickly deduces that the man had been murdered: one arm was missing; the fingers of the remaining hand had been sliced off; the teeth had been knocked out; and, above all, the man was naked.

Stanley was intrigued. What happens next? he wanted to know. Michael had no idea. ‘This is a collaborative effort,’ he said. ‘Over to you.’ So, Stanley wrote the next chapter.

Pretty soon, we realised two things: we had a great deal to learn about writing, and while our premise was intriguing, it wasn’t a plot. Why had the person been murdered? Why had the body been thrown out in the
Kalahari? Had the body intentionally been left for hyenas to consume? Why was it missing an arm?

We’d been told to write what we knew about. Since we were both professors, our intension was to make the ecologist the hero of the story. Then we got lucky. Since murder was suspected, we had to bring in a policeman to investigate. We gave the policeman little thought, imagining that he’d soon be overshadowed by the brilliant academic. So a very large detective from the Botswana CID clambered into his Land Rover, supplied with sandwiches and drinks for the trip, and set out singing along to cassette tapes of his favourite operas. As he drove, we discovered that his nickname was Kubu (hippopotamus in the local Setswana language) and that a Bushman school friend had shown him how to see hidden things in the desert by looking beyond the superficial. That had led to him becoming a detective. By the time he reached the dead body, he’d made it clear to us that he, not the ecologist, would be the main character.

We were very surprised. We hadn’t expected that our characters would take over control of the story! What had really happened, of course, was that we’d stumbled upon a really interesting character who was ideal to be the protagonist of a police procedural. This was the first book we’d written, but we’d read plenty of crime fiction and knew a great character when we met one.

That first novel, A Carrion Death, took us three years to complete, and we probably discarded at least half of what we wrote. To our delight, readers really liked Detective Kubu, and five more Kubu mysteries followed.  However, another surprise was in store for us.

Because of the way Kubu had muscled his way into our lives, fully formed as Botswana’s ace detective, we had little idea of how he’d gained that status. We wanted to find out, so we decided to write a prequel that began on the day Kubu joined the CID. He had a tough start, but he was instrumental in solving a big case. That book was called Facets of Death because it revolved around a massive diamond heist from Botswana’s Jwaneng mine, the richest diamond mine in the world.

Readers enjoyed the “young Kubu” and his interaction with his boss and mentor Jacob Mabaku, the director of the CID in the later books. So we wrote a second prequel, A Deadly Covenant, set in north-western Botswana on the doorstep of the fabulous Okavango Delta. Kubu is still new to the job — smart, eager to learn, but naïve. We’re currently working on the third and last prequel (as yet untitled) about a major, and very challenging, case that results in Kubu’s promotion. Along the way, we have greatly enjoyed following Kubu’s early career, plotting his learning curve, and watching his shy courtship of his wife-to-be, Joy.

It’s been a twenty-year journey for us with Kubu. We’ve had a lot of fun and many readers have also. We’re very grateful to the very big man with the very sharp mind.

Michael Stanley is the pen name of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. Michael lives in South Africa, and Stanley splits his time between Minneapolis, Denmark, and Cape Town. Their award-winning mysteries, featuring Detective Kubu, are set in Botswana. Death of the Mantis won a Barry Award.  The eighth Detective Kubu mystery, A Deadly Covenant, was released in 2022. They have also written a stand-alone thriller, Dead of Night, featuring investigative reporter Crystal Nguyen. They’ve published three anthologies of short stories and have edited one set in hot places called Sunshine Noir.

Books

Detective Kubu

A Carrion Death (2008)
A Deadly Trade (2009)
The Death of the Mantis (2011)
Detective Kubu Investigates (2013
Deadly Harvest (2015)
A Death in the Family (2015)
Dying to Live (2017)
Detective Kubu Investigats 2
Facets of Death (2020)
A Deadly Covenant (2022)

Freelance Hournalist, Crystal Nguyen

Shoot the Bastards (2018)
Dead of Night (2023)

 www.michaelstanleybooks.com