sigh - the dreaded 3-star rating. the book was good-ish. good enough. i certainly appreciated the light ruby-sachs shed on the issue of water privatization in south africa and the struggles faced by so many. i was quite interested in the characters ruby-sachs created, but they - and the writing - felt stilted, or somehow not fully formed. as a debut, it's impressive enough to make me interested in further fiction from ruby-sachs and, in fact, the ending is left with the potential for certain characters to return in another story. ( )

This debut novel by Emma Ruby-Sachs has much in common with the classic police procedural but manages to push the boundaries of this well-worn genre. Set in Johannesburg and surrounding townships, the story involves three women with different and often conflicting missions. Peter Matthews works for a company that is modernizing the water distribution infrastructure in the townships. However the project has met with opposition and open resistance from locals because once the new system is in place, the cost of the water it provides is beyond what most people are able to pay. One night, after a series of contentious meetings with local politicians, Matthews is murdered and his mutilated body left in a yard behind some houses. Zembe Afrika is the detective in charge of the investigation. Nomsulwa Sithu is a leader of the resistance. It is a tightly knit community where everyone knows everybody else, and after a couple of weeks, with the investigation going nowhere, Zemba enlists Nomsulwa's help when Claire Matthews, the daughter of the murdered man, arrives from Toronto seeking answers. Reluctantly Nomsulwa takes charge of Claire, her plan to show the girl what she needs to see and not one thing more. But an unexpected intimacy springs up between these two young women from vastly different cultures, and Nomsulwa ends up giving away more of herself and her passions than she intended. When the truth comes out, as it always does, Nomsulwa and Zembe find it necessary to balance loyalty against duty. The mystery is engaging, the story well paced, and Ruby-Sachs' indulges in the occasional literary flourish, but the reason to read this book is the interaction among three strong female characters who often clash, but who ultimately are all searching for the same thing. ( )