{"id":6368,"date":"2017-01-30T07:43:09","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T12:43:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6368"},"modified":"2017-01-30T07:43:09","modified_gmt":"2017-01-30T12:43:09","slug":"the-idol-of-mombasa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=6368","title":{"rendered":"****The Idol of Mombasa"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mombasa,

photo: Angelo Juan Ramos, creative commons license<\/p><\/div>\n

By Annamaria Alfieri \u2013 <\/strong>Set in 1912 in the British Protectorate of East Africa (now Kenya), The Idol of Mombasa<\/em> is Alfieri\u2019s second novel featuring Justin and Vera Tolliver. In this book, the newlyweds embark on a none-too-welcome stay in the steamy, smelly coastal city of Mombasa, where Justin is the new Assistant District Superintendent of Police.<\/p>\n

In Mombasa, they find themselves in a deliciously rendered stewpot of mixed racial, ethnic, religious, and cultural backgrounds and loyalties. Though the local government is British, Mombasa\u2014and that portion of its population that is Arab\u2014remains under the significant influence of the Sultan of Zanzibar. The British have introduced into the police service their loyal Indian subjects, and Africans of many tribes fill the population.<\/p>\n

The Tollivers are a mix too. Justin is the second son of a Yorkshire earl. He had a conventional if aristocratic upbringing, but possesses no fortune. Vera is more of a free spirit. She\u2019s the daughter of a Scottish missionary, born and raised in the Protectorate\u2019s pastoral up-country region.<\/p>\n

The conflicts inherent between and among such wildly diverse people are tailor-made for both social and domestic drama.<\/p>\n

The novel\u2019s prologue describes a daring nighttime slave and ivory smuggling operation, and the book\u2019s central dilemma relates to the illegal, but quietly tolerated practice of holding and selling slaves. Vera is an absolutist, unable to countenance slavery in any form, whereas Justin may be as morally opposed, but constrained by unwritten policy and his superiors.<\/p>\n

When a runaway slave is murdered, followed soon after by the death of a notorious Arab slave-trafficker, Justin and Vera both set out to find the perpetrator\u2014he in his official capacity and she with secret, possibly risky, and sometimes unaccountably na\u00efve actions of her own. Conflict between the couple is thereby assured, as Justin alternately admires and is frustrated by Vera\u2019s passionate, impulsive personality.<\/p>\n

Alfieri\u2019s descriptions of exotic Mombasa and its environs a hundred years ago vividly evoke the setting. Her writing is clear and interesting, yet somehow doesn\u2019t exude a strong sense of menace, despite the cast of desperate characters and perilous environment. She keeps multiple plot balls up in the air, through a set of intriguing and well-drawn secondary characters. The net result is that this atmospheric novel transports you back in time and across continents to set you down in the middle of Mombasa, 1912.<\/p>\n

A longer version of this review appeared at crimefictionlover.com<\/a>.
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