Two detectives trace bombing into election chaos
Ishmael, a Black American ex-cop from Madison, Wisconsin, and his Kenyan partner O run a private detective agency in Nairobi. They investigate a murder and a hotel bombing that turn out to be linked, and the case pulls them into the violence that followed Kenya's disputed December 2007 presidential election. The investigation stands as a fictional case study of how a crime that looks local can connect to national political breakdown.