Sibanda and the Rainbird

Sibanda and the rainbird is a crime novel based in the African bush, and introduces Detective Inspector Jabulani Sibanda, a highly-knowledgeable, cultured, bush-savvy policeman in contemporary Africa, stationed at a large village on the borders of the National Park. The story opens with the discovery of a gruesomely vulture-mutilated corpse in the Park near Thunduluka Lodge. Sibanda comes to the conclusion that the victim has been murdered for body parts. Clues include: tyre tracks, a knife inscribed with the letter ‘B’, and a sliver of blue metallic car paint, all of which lead Sibanda on several fraught journeys in search of the distinctive vehicle. With Sibanda are his sidekicks: Sergeant Ncube – an overweight, digestively challenged, severally married angler and mechanical genius; and Miss Daisy – an ancient, truculent and eccentric Land Rover that is the bane of Sibanda’s life and the love of Ncube’s. But the Bush, Detective Sibanda’s passion for it and encyclopaedic knowledge of it are characters as much as the comic Ncube and his loveable Miss Daisy. This is a gentle tale, with brush strokes of violence that touches on several themes and encompasses history, politics, brutality in war and marriage, betrayal and greed.