Dying To Live by Michael Stanley - Blog Tour Review

I'm excited to be part of the blog tour for Dying To Live, which is the sixth book in the Detective Kubu series. Any time a new Michael Stanley book comes around you can be sure that I'll be reading it, so when Orenda Books got in touch to say Dying To Live was coming out, I jumped at the chance of reading it. 

Dying To Live

When the body of a Bushman is discovered near the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, the death is written off as an accident. But all is not as it seems. An autopsy reveals that, although he's clearly very old, his internal organs are puzzlingly young. What's more, an old bullet is lodged in one of his muscles ... but where is the entry wound? When the body is stolen from the morgue and a local witch doctor is reported missing, Detective 'Kubu' Bengu gets involved. But did the witch doctor take the body to use as part of a ritual? Or was it the American anthropologist who'd befriended the old Bushman? 

As Kubu and his brilliant young colleague, Detective Samantha Khama, follow the twisting trail through a confusion of rhino-horn smugglers, foreign gangsters and drugs manufacturers, the wider and more dangerous the case seems to grow. A fresh, new slice of 'Sunshine Noir', Dying to Live is a classic tale of greed, corruption and ruthless thuggery, set in one of the world's most beautiful landscapes, and featuring one of crime fiction's most endearing and humane heroes.

My Review

Well they did it again, I absolutely loved this book. Detective Kubu is easily one of my all time favourite detectives. He isn't your usual grumpy, hard drinking detective. He's happy (well as happy as a murder detective can be) and has a loving and wonderful family and he genuinely tries to be good to everyone. This on top of being a really great detective. If they could get the casting right, this series should 100% be a tv series. 

The stories are always quite dark and in Dying To Live, that is still true. The stories always contain things that I've never read about and things that I wouldn't have even thought about and I love that about them. They are also incredibly well written and thought out. There are twists and turns which don't always lead to where you are expecting and will keep you guessing. As usual Botswana is a character in itself and you can feel its essence throughout the book.

It was really good to see more of Detective Samantha Khama and get to know her better after enjoying her character previously. All the characters though are very strong and there isn't any I can pick out as being weak. Ian Macgregor the pathologist is also another one of my favourite characters, even though he isn't in it quite as much. 

Though Dying To Live is the sixth book in the series, reading this as a stand alone is very easily possible. I would definitely recommend reading the whole series though just because of how good it is. 

Overall another excellent book from Michael Stanley and I'm already excited waiting for their next book. 

I gave this book 5 stars.  

About The Authors

Michael Stanley is the writing team of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip. Both were born in South Africa and have worked in academia and business. On a flying trip to Botswana, they watched a pack of hyenas hunt, kill, and devour a wildebeest, eating both flesh and bones. That gave them the premise for their first mystery, A Carrion Death, which introduced Detective ‘Kubu’ Bengu of the Botswana Criminal Investigation Department. It was a finalist for five awards, including the CWA Debut Dagger. The series has been critically acclaimed, and their third book, Death of the Mantis, won the Barry Award and was a finalist for an Edgar award. Deadly Harvest was a finalist for an International Thriller Writers’ award, and book 5, A Death in the Family, was an international bestseller.

Don't Forget To Check Out The Rest Of The Tour