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Nothing ever happens on Tarawa, a coral atoll in the middle of the Pacific. Then a mutilated body is found in a children's nursery hut. Detective Sergeant Louisa Townsend from Edinburgh is on the island, helping train local police officers in basic detecting skills. She is asked to find the killer and jumps at the chance to be in charge of her first murder investigation. She marvels at the simplicity of the task ahead - after all, how difficult can it be to find the murderer on a desert island the size of a postage stamp and with only one road? But nothing on Tarawa is what it seems.… (mais)
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Exibindo 4 de 4
Louisa Townsend was born on the Pacific island of Tarawa, one of the islands that make up the Republic of Kiribati, but left with her family when she was eight. After many years living in Edinburgh she has returned as a Detective Sergeant tasked with establishing an investigators program for the local police. However when a body is discovered at a local club all the island’s more senior police detectives are away from the island so Louisa is given the opportunity to oversee the investigation.

This is a light, gently humorous tale that is a little predictable with regards to the ‘fish out of water’ trope but still offers lots of enjoyment. Aside from her cousin and some other extended family members no one knows Louisa is a Tarawa native but it doesn’t seem too likely she’d progress much more quickly with the investigation even if she did know as the island is depicted as more than a little backward when it comes to the idea of a woman being in charge of an investigation (or anything else). Louisa struggles to get the mostly male officers remaining at the station to do as she asks which adds to the difficulties presented by the isolated location and lack of resources. As a character Louisa is likeable but not loveable on my personal scale but I did enjoy meeting her. The frustrations she feels at the slow pace of the investigation and the notion that not everyone is treating the murder with the seriousness deserved is entirely credible and her struggles make her seem very human. She suffers from some obsessive traits and has a fear of germs but she overcomes or at least incorporates these into her life so that they don’t intrude too much and it does provide an interesting quirk to her character.

The story was a little weak to begin with but got stronger in the second half – not least because some actual investigating progress was made and Louisa started making some real connections with some of the other characters. I was on tenterhooks during the dramatic sea voyage towards the end of the novel. I do have to say though that at times I felt like I was being invited to laugh at the locals and their idiosyncrasies in a vaguely unpleasant way. To be fair to the author I suspect this is more to do with the writing technique than any belief on her part in the superiority of ‘the civilised world’ as she lived on Tarawa for some years and writes very warmly of it. I’ve read a few modern crime novels featuring similar scenarios of outsiders working in exotic locations (for example Catherine Titasey’s MY ISLAND HOMICIDE, Andrew Nette’s GHOST MONEY, Timothy Hallinan’s THE FOURTH WATCHER and Angela Savage’s series which begins with BEHIND THE NIGHT BAZAAR) and did not get this sensibility with any of those novels even though they all depict differences between cultures and even the odd exotic eccentricity. In FOOD OF GHOSTS I think I’d like to have seen some more examples of the locals’ knowledge and customs having a positive contribution rather than just being odd or amusing though I appreciate this is a delicate balance and there’s a chance I’m being overly sensitive.

Overall though I did enjoy FOOD OF GHOSTS. Louisa’s culture shock, the vivid depictions of the island’s natural environment, the vibrant community of locals and expats and a murder investigation that proves to have an entirely credible outcome all combine to form a jolly romp of a tale.
  bsquaredinoz | Feb 1, 2015 |
A crime novel featuring a biracial female detective and set on small island in the nation of Kiribati in the middle of the Pacific.

Sargent Detective Louisa Townsend has been sent to Tarawa to train the local police force. The small coral island is part of the nation of Kiribati, a country which consists of 33 tiny islands located on the equator in the central Pacific. Louisa is the daughter of a woman from the island and a Scottish mechanic who worked there. The family had lived on Tarawa until Louisa was eight before moving to Scotland. Louisa’s father left his wife and daughter soon after, and Louisa grew up never feeling she belonged anywhere. Twenty-six years later she returned to Tarawa as the representative of a European group seeking to help train the local police. By chance, she is placed in charge of the investigation of a local murder. Because the eyes have been gorged out of the corpus, some people claim the killing was done by a ghost. Although Louisa has been part of teams investigating murders in Edinburgh, now she is alone without the backup on which she has previously depended. Louisa is an obsessive woman with few social skills. She often alienates those whose help she most needs. She belongs neither to the British “expats” on the island nor to the local community. Although her mother is from the island, the only relative she recognizes is a cousin whom she hires to clean her house. As Louisa tries to solve her case, more murders surface. She is herself endangered, and she finally releases some of her obsessions. It is among her island relatives that Louisa eventually finds a place for herself.
Read more: http://wp.me/p24OK2-19S
  mdbrady | Jun 20, 2014 |
Disclosure: I received a review copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

The 2013 Global Reading Challenge is definitely broadening my reading horizon: today's review is a crime novel set in South Tarawa, the capital of Kiribati, an island nation in the Pacific. The main character is DS Louisa Townsend, the daughter of a Kiribati mother and a Scottish father who lived in Kiribati until she was eight. She has returned to Kiribati as part of a grant to set up a community policing program there, but she doesn't want to broadcast her connection to the island to her colleagues.

The central crime of the novel involves the death of Joe, a shark fin and sea cucumber exporter who is found dead at a club popular with expatriates on the island. Louisa heads and conducts the investigation basically by herself because most of her colleagues are away attending to other matters. I usually prefer police team investigations in my procedurals, but I was a fan of Louisa.

The novel focuses on the obstacles to Louisa's investigation in all their forms. Louisa combats her obsessive-compulsive tendencies in order to do her daily work as a police officer. She has to deal with the secrets and lies of everyone, basically, that she interviews in the course of the investigation. Finally, and most importantly, she has to deal with the disadvantage of being an outsider on the island and a woman trying to pursue the murder investigation.

The novel spends plenty of time with a variety of characters: the native islanders and the expatriates, Louisa and her family and, to some extent, her colleagues on the police department. I felt like the picture of the island and its society and its problems was at the forefront of the story until the second half of the novel when the murder investigation progressed. I tend to like more cliffhangers and a pacier read, but I really liked this novel. I think it's because I needed the background about Kiribati because I didn't know much about it before I read this book. (And this book sent me to Wikipedia to find out more)
  rkreish | Apr 22, 2013 |
DS Louisa Townsend is from Edinburgh. Like Robert Louis Stevenson a hundred years before her, she goes to Kiribati to get away from it all. Unlike Robert Louis Stevenson, she has a week to find a killer. But with no forensics and no one telling the truth, Louisa worries the killer may find her first. DS Louisa Townsend is fearless, feisty and vulnerable – and miles away from home.
  mwheelaghan | Mar 12, 2013 |
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Nothing ever happens on Tarawa, a coral atoll in the middle of the Pacific. Then a mutilated body is found in a children's nursery hut. Detective Sergeant Louisa Townsend from Edinburgh is on the island, helping train local police officers in basic detecting skills. She is asked to find the killer and jumps at the chance to be in charge of her first murder investigation. She marvels at the simplicity of the task ahead - after all, how difficult can it be to find the murderer on a desert island the size of a postage stamp and with only one road? But nothing on Tarawa is what it seems.

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