BOOK REVIEW: A gentle thriller about a gruesome killer
African crime genre author Scotty Elliott is not keen on up-close gore, and it's her characters that fascinate
Sibanda and the Black SparrowhawkCm ElliottJacana Media Skinned, raped bodies flung into the bush from moving passenger trains are at the gruesome heart of what Zimbabwean author Scotty (CM) Elliott has decided, for now, to call her "African crime genre" books. She’s searching for a catchier name for the breed that includes the Number 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series by Alexander McCall Smith, her Detective Inspector Jabulani Sibanda series and other such books. Elliott, based in Bulawayo, explains they are not Nordic Noir or police procedural — or thrillers in which a woman gets tied up in a basement waiting to be tortured. "My books are set in less explicit and violent crime than the norm. They are in keeping with a move back to more gentle crime writing these days." A pause before she adds, "although this one is gritty in some ways". But the violence takes place "off stage" because she’s not into up close and personal twisting of knives, blood and gore. Elliott began writing in ...
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