A clear-eyed account of rampant government corruption in Kenya.
In this era of worldwide government mistrust, when administrations confront a growing demand for accountability, it can be difficult to put corruption into perspective. But Muriuki, a former member of parliament in Kenya, details a convincing case for his government’s place at the ethical nadir. His telling is fictional, but inspired by real schemes plaguing the country: millions of dollars “disappear” in the labyrinthine government accounting network, promissory notes are paid for nonexistent goods and services and an ineffectual legal system dismisses culpability. As the title—referencing the Anglo Leasing group of shadowy companies at the heart of Kenya’s most notorious scandals—suggests, foreign nationals play a major role in swindling hundreds of millions of dollars from public coffers. But the root of corruption remains local. Joseph Mwamko, an unassuming yet enterprising Kenyan, personifies his country’s culture of corruption. He begins his career with honest, if naive, ambition, until forsaking morality upon reaching what he perceives to be the limit of success through integrity. After all, in the Kenyan government, immorality pays better. Even for the fictitious attorney general, the country’s ultimate investigator, corruption in the regime becomes inescapable: “Telling him to investigate anything was like telling him to investigate himself,” writes Muriuki. With self-sacrifice impossible, inquiries deflate for a bribe, legal proceedings collapse on a whim and the chicanery continues. Newfangled democratic ideals provide little relief because the elected government is merely “much more focused than the last one,” says Mwamko. His guile pilots the plot forward, parallel to Muriuki’s shrewd analysis of the scandal as it spirals into legendary proportions. Only in the end does facile dialogue slacken the tense complexity born from the expanding fraud. Otherwise, as with Mwamko, Muriuki’s composure pays off. Another round of copy editing and a deeper interest in the personalities behind the scandal would make for an even more cutting exposé. Call it “informed fiction.” A noteworthy chapter in the study of corruption.
Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2011
ISBN: 978-1456787622
Page Count: 224
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Dec. 20, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2012
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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