Silent Valley (25 page)

Also by Malla Nunn

A Beautiful Place to Die

Let the Dead Lie

A Beautiful Place to Die

In the tiny South African town of Jacob’s Rest, Detective Emmanuel Cooper is sent to investigate the murder of an Afrikaner police officer, Captain Willem Pretorius.

Cooper, an ‘English’ South African, is viewed with suspicion by both the Boer Afrikaners and the dead man’s prominent family, and his investigation is quickly taken over by Security Branch. But Cooper isn’t interested in political expediency, or making friends in high places, and as he pursues his own inquiry, he discovers that Captain Pretorius had led a deadly double life.

The more Cooper digs, the more dangerous the investigation becomes. For Cooper is a man with his own secrets, and learning the truth about Captain Pretorius just might save life . . . if he isn’t killed first.

In this riveting debut, Malla Nunn combines a thrilling, action-packed story with a thoughtful, complex portrayal of an unforgettable time and place and the human desires that drive us all, regardless of race, colour or creed.

Let the Dead Lie

From the award-winning author of
A Beautiful Place to Die
comes the next sensational instalment featuring charismatic detective Emmanuel Cooper.

In
Let the Dead Lie
, Cooper is a changed man. Forced to resign from his position of Detective Sergeant and re-classified as ‘mixed race’, he winds up powerless and alone in the tough coastal city of Durban, mixing labouring with a bit of surveillance work for his old boss, Major van Niekerk.

Patrolling the freight yards one night, Cooper stumbles upon the body of a young white boy and, the detective in him cannot, or will not, walk away. When two more bodies – this time black women – are discovered at his boarding house, he unwittingly becomes the prime suspect in a triple murder case.

At van Niekerk’s behest, Cooper’s given 48 hours to clear his name and – unofficially – solve the three murders. And so, temporarily back to being a European Detective Sergeant, he launches headlong into Durban’s seedy underworld, a viper’s nest of prostitution, drug running and violence run by a colourful cast of characters including wannabe Indian gangsters; a mysterious figure who drives a white De Soto convertible; a Zion Gospel preacher, and the exquisite yet streetwise Lana, who also happens to be van Niekerk’s mistress . . .

First published 2012 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

Copyright © Malla Nunn 2012
The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Nunn, Malla.

Silent valley / Malla Nunn.

9781742610887 (pbk.)

Murder—Investigation—Fiction.
Durban (South Africa)—Fiction.
South Africa—Fiction.

823.92

Adobe eReader format: 9781743346662
EPUB format: 9781743346686
Online format: 9781743346679

The characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia
Cover design by Design By Committee

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www.macmillandigital.com.au

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www.panmacmillan.com.au
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