Petals of Blood
by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Kenya, 1977
The puzzling murder of three African directors of a foreign-owned brewery sets the scene for this novel about disillusionment in independent Kenya. It is, on the surface, a suspenseful investigation of a triple murder. But as the intertwined stories of the four suspects unfold, a devastating picture emerges of a modern third-world nation whose frustrated people feel their leaders have failed them time after time