A Beautiful Place to Die
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A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn
Award-winning screenwriter Malla Nunn delivers a stunning and darkly romantic crime novel set in 1950s apartheid South Africa, featuring Detective 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. In a morally complex tale rich with authenticity, Nunn takes readers to Jacob's Rest, a tiny town on the border between South Africa and Mozambique. It is 1952, and new apartheid laws have recently gone into effect, dividing a nation into black and white while supposedly healing the political rifts between the Afrikaners and the English. Tensions simmer as the fault line between the oppressed and the oppressors cuts deeper, but it's not until an Afrikaner police officer is found dead that emotions more dangerous than anyone thought possible boil to the surface. When Detective Emmanuel Cooper, an Englishman, begins investigating the murder, his mission is preempted by the powerful police Security Branch, who are dedicated to their campaign to flush out black communist radicals. But Detective Cooper isn't interested in political expediency and has never been one for making friends. He may be modest, but he radiates intelligence and certainly won't be getting on his knees before those in power. Instead, he strikes out on his own, following a trail of clues that lead him to uncover a shocking forbidden love and the imperfect life of Captain Pretorius, a man whose relationships with the black and coloured residents of the town he ruled were more complicated and more human than anyone could have imagined. The first in her Detective Emmanuel Cooper series, A Beautiful Place to Die marks the debut of a talented writer who reads like a brilliant combination of Raymond Chandler and Graham Greene. It is a tale of murder, passion, corruption, and the corrosive double standard that defined an apartheid nation. I
Malla Nunn was born and raised in Swaziland. Her adult crime books have earned her two Edgar nominations and a RUSA Award for Best Mystery Novel. Her first young adult novel, When the Ground is Hard, won the L.A. Times Book Prize for Young Adult Literature and the Josette Frank Award for Children's Literature.
After earning a master's degree in Theatre Studies, she dabbled in acting in New York City, worked as a cocktail waitress, a nanny, a bookseller, and on film sets, but never at the same time. She also made short films and an award-winning documentary, Servant of the Ancestors, before surrendering to her passion: writing books.
She married in a traditional Swazi ceremony. Her bride price was eighteen cows.
After earning a master's degree in Theatre Studies, she dabbled in acting in New York City, worked as a cocktail waitress, a nanny, a bookseller, and on film sets, but never at the same time. She also made short films and an award-winning documentary, Servant of the Ancestors, before surrendering to her passion: writing books.
She married in a traditional Swazi ceremony. Her bride price was eighteen cows.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781416586210 |
| ISBN 10 | 1416586210 |
| Title | A Beautiful Place to Die |
| Author | Malla Nunn |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Atria Books |
| Year published | 2009-10-20 |
| Number of pages | 400 |
| Prizes | Short-listed for Macavity Award (First Mystery) 2010 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |