Botswana Mystery

Sekoa is a male lion who shares with humans the misfortune of being a bearer of the HIV/AIDS virus. He has lost his place as the alpha male in his pride, and now, weakened by disease and harassed by hyenas, he seeks only a place to die in peace. Leo Painter, the CEO of a large development firm, has traveled to Botswana to consult with the government about accessing their extractable resources. Pursued by his own "hyenas," Painter wishes only to find a last resting place where he can further his dream: to build a resort-casino on Botswana's Chobe River. When Leo and Sekoa's paths cross with tragic consequences, the police, a plucky woman game warden, and myriad local authorities, hoteliers, and tribesmen vie over what happened and to whom.

The World Cup, which arrives in June, has ripple effects on all of South Africa's neighbors. The arrival of soccer fans, team owners, sponsors, and world dignitaries makes southern Africa, particularly Botswana, ripe for all sorts of intrigue and illicit activities. The American Secretary of State will visit the Chobe; the North Koreans, the Okavango; Arabs, French, Chinese, and Russians are scattered among the various lodges and hotels in the country before, during, and after the games-and all will be watching and waiting on the others. Orgonise Africa, derived from Wilhelm Reich's popularization of orgone energy and transmogrified by bad science and wishful thinking, is an effort by fanatics to push forward a plan to seed Africa with orgone, which they believe will purify the continent, rid it of drought, poverty, and HIV/AIDS. To the north, Patriarche, a silverback mountain gorilla, is forced to share his habitat with coltan miners led by General Le Grande, one of the Congo's many bloody warlords. The profits from the sale of coltan, so prized by electronics manufacturers, help fuel the seemingly endless civil wars that plague that poor country. Sanderson, Game Ranger of Chobe National Park, finds a body. Tracking down the murderer opens doors that lead her and Inspector Kgabo Modise first to evidence of local bribery, then to smuggling, and finally to what could well provoke an international incident, if not for the shrewd action of Modise and Botswana's intelligence community.

In Botswana, people of the north live in harmony with the wildlife, yet predators and poachers roam freely. The lions may be kings, but hyenas will steal their prey. A Chobe Game Park pack led by the alpha female is especially fearless. The locals call her Kotsi Mosadi, Setswana for Danger Woman. Following a recent rash of deaths and dismembered body parts appearing in the park, District Superintendent Sanderson is alerted to the discovery of a ravaged human skull, believed to be the work of the Russian Bratva. Fresh from St. Petersburg, led by Oleg Lenka, these mafiosi think it will be a cinch to take over the region's high-end tourist trade and in particular the casino/hotel operation that is the fiercely held, final dream of American billionaire Leo Painter. Sanderson's friend and, it must be said, her lover, Inspector Kgabo Modise of the Botswana Police Service, is tasked to remove them. Arriving from Gaborone, deploying limited staff undercover, Modise is quickly swept into a complex set of moves orchestrated to outwit not so much Lenka, a traditional kind of thug, but his mistress Irena Davidova, the Bratva's own Danger Woman. She's the alpha of the Russian pack, but for how long? Aided by Sanderson, who has some clever moves of her own, Modise and his team gradually undermine the Bratva's assumption that the intimidation tactics that worked in St. Petersburg will work in Botswana, a country where the police are unarmed. And Leo has a ruthless Russian of his own in play, plus resources from Chicago. In parallel, a very pregnant Kotsi Mosadi is fully engaged keeping control of her pack and outwitting relentless lions. Within the majestic park, the interplay of predator and prey, the unpredictability of conflicting interests, and the heartlessness of the Bratva culture finally collide to upend an otherwise ordinary night on the Chobe River.