Malla Nunn

"A biracial girl living in post-apartheid South Africa is determined to unveil the mystery of her white mother's hidden past"--

Sugar Town Queens

At Swaziland's Keziah Christian Academy, where the wealth and color of one's father determines one's station, once-popular Adele bonds with poor Lottie over a book and a series of disasters.

When the Ground Is Hard

Jacob's Rest, a tiny town on the border between South Africa and Mozambique, 1952. An Afrikaner police officer is found dead. Detective Emmanuel Cooper, an Englishman, begins investigating the murder following a trail of clues that lead him to uncover as

A Novel

A Beautiful Place to Die

A tale set in the harsh world of apartheid South Africa finds Detective Emmanuel Cooper cancelling his holiday plans to learn the truth about his best friend's wrongful murder charge by a high-profile white teen, a case that pits him against violent gangs and corrupt government officials. By the author of A Beautiful Place to Die. Original.

Present Darkness

Nur achtundvierzig Stunden Durban in den fünfziger Jahren. Drogenbosse, Zuhälter, korrupte Polizisten, indische Kleinkriminelle, gestrandete Deutsche beherrschen die Szene. Emmanuel Cooper, ein verdeckter Ermittler, muss einen Mörder finden, um sich selbst zu retten. Eindrucksvoll beschreibt Malla Nunn die dunklen, gleichwohl faszinierenden Seiten Südafrikas.

Kriminalroman

Lass die Toten ruhen

Christos Tsiolkas

Georgia Blain

Judy Nunn

Craig Silvey

Alex Miller

Rachael Treasure

Nick Earls

Mark Dapin

Includes stories by: Maggie Alderson, Georgia Blain, Mark Dapin, Nick Earls, Alex Miller, Judy Nunn, Malla Nunn, Craig Silvey, Rachael Treasure, Christos Tsiolkas.

Ten Short Stories You Must Read in 2010

Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper returns in this powerful, atmospheric novel about two communities forced to confront each other after a murder that exposes their secret ties and forbidden desires in apartheid South Africa, by award-winning author Malla Nunn. The body of a beautiful seventeen-year-old Zulu girl, Amahle, is found covered in wildflowers on a hillside in the Drakensberg Mountains, halfway between her father’s compound and the enormous white-owned farm where she worked. Detective Sergeant Cooper and Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala are sent to the desolate landscape to investigate. They soon discover that Amahle’s life was woven into both the black and white communities in ways they could never have imagined. Cooper and Shabalala must enter the guarded worlds of a traditional Zulu clan and a divided white farming community to gather up the secrets she left behind and bring her murderer to justice. In a country deeply divided by apartheid, where the law is bent as often as it is broken, Emmanuel Cooper fights against all odds to deliver justice and bring together two seemingly disparate and irreconcilable worlds despite the danger that is arising.

An Emmanuel Cooper Mystery

Blessed Are the Dead

Fifteen-year-old Amandla's mother has always been strange. For starters, she's a white woman living in Sugar Town, one of South Africa's infamous shanty towns. She won't tell anyone, not even Amandla, about her past. And she has visions, including ones that promise the return of Amandla's father as if he were a prince in a fairytale, but their hardscrabble life is no fairytale. Amandla knows her father is long gone - since before Amandla was born - and she's pretty sure he's not a prince. He's just another mystery and missing piece of her mother's past, and one of the many reasons people in Sugar Town give them strange looks - that and the fact that Amandla is black and her mother is not. Lately, her mother has been acting even more strangely, so when Amandla finds a mysterious address at the bottom of her mother's purse along with a large amount of cash, she decides it's finally time to get answers about her mother's life. With her best friends by her side, Amandla is ready to take on the devil himself, and as she confronts devastating family secrets and pain that has lasted a generation, taking on the devil is exactly what she must do.

DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA, 1953 Forced to resign from his position of Detective Sergeant and re-classified as "mixed race" after an incident involving a young black woman, Emmanuel Cooper winds up powerless and alone in the tough coastal city of Durban mixing labouring with surveillance work for his old boss, Major van Niekerk. Patrolling the freight yards one night, he 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 an older English woman and her maid - are discovered at his boarding house, he unwittingly becomes the prime suspect in a triple murder case.At Major van Niekerk's behest, Cooper is given 48 hours to clear his name and - unofficially - solve the three murders. And so, temporarily back to being a European Detective Sergeant, he descends into Durban's seedy underworld, a viper's nest of prostitution, drugs and violence run by Indian gangsters. To solve the crimes and save his own skin, he must place his trust in a mysterious figure who drives a white DeSoto convertible, a Zion Gospel preacher, and the exquisite yet streetwise Lana, who also happens to be Major van Niekerk's mistress...Suspenseful, compelling and rich with the complexities of life in Apartheid-era South Africa, Let The Dead Lie cements Malla Nunn's place as one of Australia's most engaging crime writers.

Let the Dead Lie

Silent Valley

South Africa, 1953. The National Party's rigid race laws have split the nation and a gruelling poverty grips many on the edges of its society. When former Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper stumbles across the body of a child, Jolly Marks, at the Durban docks, he can little imagine what the discovery will lead him to. Soon Cooper finds himself under suspicion for not only Jolly's murder, but others as well. The only way he can clear his name is to find out who the real killer was - and he's got 48 hours in which to do it. His investigations will lead him into Durban's murky underworld of pimps, prostitutes, strange and sinister preachers, and those on the wrong side of the race laws. For there is more to Jolly's barbaric murder than Cooper could ever have realized . . . 'One reads this superior sequel to an outstanding debut feeling moral outrage and genuine excitement, which makes it an unusually intense experience' Daily Telegraph

The second in a crime series set in 1950's South Africa when apartheid laws were first introduced.

From award-winning author and filmmaker Malla Nunn, a collection of three riveting crime novels set in 1950s apartheid South Africa. A Beautiful Place to Die A stunning and darkly romantic crime novel set in 1950s apartheid South Africa, featuring Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper—a man caught up in a time and place where racial tensions and the raw hunger for power make life very dangerous indeed. Let the Dead Lie When a young boy is brutally murdered, Detective Cooper is forced out of the shadows and back into service, eluding the Afrikaner police as he conducts his own covert investigation. As the murders continue to pile up, with Cooper perilously close to the scenes, he becomes the police department’s prime suspect. Blessed Are the Dead Detective Cooper returns in this powerful, atmospheric novel about two communities forced to confront each other after a murder that exposes their secret ties and forbidden desires in apartheid South Africa.

A Beautiful Place to Die, Let the Dead Lie, and Blessed Are the Dead

The Malla Nunn Collection #1

Set in the corrupt, unforgiving world of apartheid South Africa, this novel in the Detective Emmanuel Cooper series follows Cooper as he faces a test of loyalty and friendship. Five days before Christmas, Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper sits at his desk at the Johannesburg major crimes squad, ready for his holiday in Mozambique. A call comes in: a respectable white couple has been assaulted and left for dead in their bedroom. The couple’s teenage daughter identifies the attacker as Aaron Shabalala— the youngest son of Zulu Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala—Cooper’s best friend and a man to whom he owes his life. The Detective Branch isn’t interested in evidence that might contradict their star witness’s story, especially so close to the holidays. Determined to ensure justice for Aaron, Cooper, Shabalala, and their trusted friend Dr. Daniel Zweigman hunt for the truth. Their investigation uncovers a violent world of Sophiatown gangs, thieves, and corrupt government officials who will do anything to keep their dark world intact.

In the third gripping instalment of Malla Nunn's acclaimed crime series, the body of a beautiful 17-year-old Zulu girl, Amahle, is found covered in wildflowers on a hillside in the Drakensberg Mountains, halfway between her father's compound and the enormous white-owned farm where she worked. Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper and Zulu Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala are sent to the desolate landscape to investigate. They soon discover that Amahle's life was woven into both the black and white communities in ways they could never have imagined ... 'A disturbing book with a morally compelling hero.' Booklist 'Gripping and thoughtful ... Malla Nunn brilliantly combines character and fair play clues.' Publishers Weekly, starred review 'Historical hindsight may make readers a bit more self-congratulatory about recognizing the evils of apartheid, but it won't help them see around the curves Nunn has plotted or rise above her insight into the enduring dilemmas of her separate-and-unequal world.' Kirkus Reviews

At Swaziland's Keziah Christian Academy, where the wealth and color of one's father determines one's station, once-popular Adele bonds with poor Lottie over a shared copy of "Jane Eyre" and a series of disasters.

Im zutiefst korrupten Apartheidstaat Südafrika 1953: Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper hat sich nach Johannesburg versetzen lassen, um hier mit seiner heimlichen Familie ein Doppelleben zu führen, von dem keiner seiner Kollegen etwas ahnen darf, schon gar nicht sein argwöhnischer Vorgesetzter Lieutenant Walter Mason. Andernfalls droht Cooper Berufsverbot und Gefängnis, ganz zu schweigen von den Repressalien, die seine farbige Frau und ihre kleine Tochter zu erwarten hätten: Die Rassentrennungsgesetze sind gnadenlos. Er muss also extrem behutsam lavieren. Als im Villenviertel ein weißes Ehepaar überfallen wird, geraten seine Loyalitäten auf den Prüfstand. Cooper kann nicht glauben, dass Constable Shabalalas Sohn ein Raubmörder sein soll. Doch für seine Kollegen ist der Fall klar: Wenn ein weißes Mädchen einen Zulu-Jungen beschuldigt, gibt es kein Zweifeln. Schon gar nicht direkt vor der Urlaubszeit. Cooper wird kurzerhand kaltgestellt. Und riskiert alles. Malla Nunns Romane aus dem Herzen einer repressiven, zutiefst patriarchalen Kolonialgesellschaft kombinieren das unbeschwerte Vergnügen fulminanter historischer Kriminal¬romane – historische Genauigkeit, stringente Plotführung und mitreißend geschilderte Auseinandersetzungen – mit tiefen Einsichten über die Art, wie Menschen sich in Gesellschaft positionieren, worauf sie mit Angst, mit Anpassung, mit Aggression oder mit gesteigerter Kompetenzbildung reagieren. Das ist große Literatur, mitten im Genre. »Nunn ist eine Meisterin darin, die Unterdrückung noch in der leisesten Körpersprache darzustellen. Eine starke Schreibe, aus der der Duft der Regenzeit des südlichen Afrikas aufsteigt.« Christiane Müller-Lohbeck, taz »Behutsam, fein und klug: Nunn.« KrimiZEIT-Bestenliste »Ein zutiefst fesselndes und hypnotisches Leseerlebnis, getränkt mit der Atmosphäre Südafrikas in den 1950ern.« Mike Nicol, Autor der Rache-Trilogie

Zeit der Finsternis. Ein Fall für Emmanuel Cooper

Regresa el detective Emmanuel Cooper con esta poderosa novela sobre dos comunidades forzadas a enfrentarse entre sí después de un asesinato que deja al descubierto sus más íntimos secretos en la Sudáfrica del apartheid. «Un prodigio de destreza.» Kirkus Reviews «Absorbente. Soberbia.» Publishers Weekly El cadáver de Amahle, una hermosa joven zulú de 17 años, aparece en una ladera de los Montes Drakensberg, cubierto de flores, entre el poblado donde su padre es jefe tribal y la enorme granja de un blanco donde trabajaba. El detective Emmanuel Cooper y su ayudante Shabalala, también perteneciente al pueblo zulú, son los elegidos para investigar este terrible suceso. No tardan en descubrir que la vida de Amahle estaba dividida entre la comunidad negra y la blanca de una forma que jamás hubieran imaginado. Cooper se sumerge en la vida de la comunidad blanca y el mundo tradicional de los antiguos jefes zulúes, es la única manera de romper el silencio de estas comunidades que se oponen y de averiguar lo que le pasó a la joven, y por qué... En una comunidad castigada por el racismo y el sexismo y por un equilibrio de poderes inestable, encontrar al asesino de la joven Amahle quizá resulte imposible... o incluso mortal.

Malla Nunn

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