Publication
Soho Crime (2012), 304 p.
Original publication date
2011
Collections
Description
"It's not easy being Ben Kella. As a sergeant in the Solomon Islands Police Force, as well as an aofia, a hereditary spiritual peacekeeper of the Lau people, he is viewed with distrust by both the indigenous islanders and the British colonial authorities. In the past few days he has been cursed by a magic man, stumbled across evidence of a cargo cult uprising, and failed to find an American anthropologist who had been scouring the mountains for a priceless pornographic icon. Then, at a mission station, Kella discovers an independent and rebellious young American nun, Sister Conchita, secretly trying to bury a skeleton. The unlikely pair of Kella and Conchita are forced to team up to solve a series of murders that tie into all these other strange goings-on..."--Dust cover flap.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member cathyskye
First Line: Sister Conchita clung to the sides of the small dugout canoe as the waves pounded over the frail vessel, soaking its two occupants.
It is 1960 in the Solomon Islands, which saw some of the fiercest fighting during World War II (Guadalcanal among other battles). Memories of those days are
New to the islands is Sister Conchita, a young Catholic nun from Chicago who chose her name because she thought she was being posted to South America and wanted to fit in. She wants to learn native customs and to help these people as much as she possibly can. Her vows of poverty and chastity won't be problems for her, but her vow of obedience may be a backbreaker. Her impetuous desire for doing the right thing means bent and broken rules everywhere she goes:
" In any case, it had always been her philosophy that it was better to apologize profusely after the event than to neglect an opportunity when it arose. "
Sergeant Kella has been busy. Within a matter of a few days, he's been cursed by a shaman, stumbled across evidence of an uprising, and been unable to find a missing American anthropologist. When he stops at one of the mission stations, he finds Sister Conchita trying to bury a skeleton on the sly. Little does he know that he'll soon be teaming up with Sister Conchita to solve a series of murders that tie in with all these strange happenings.
Plain and simple-- I loved this book. Author Graeme Kent was a Schools Broadcasting Officer in the Solomon Islands during the 1960s, and he immersed me in the culture of the place without being heavy-handed or pedantic. He also painted a vivid portrait of the Solomons during World War II with a very few strokes... just enough to fire the imagination and illuminate portions of the plot.
The two main characters, Sergeant Ben Kella and Sister Conchita, are two of the most interesting characters that I've come across recently in crime fiction. With their differences in culture and temperament and their similar penchant for doing what they think right regardless of the prattling of their superiors, they are going to make a wonderful crime-fighting team. (They're pretty good at cracking jokes, too.)
I can't wait for more books to appear in this series!
It is 1960 in the Solomon Islands, which saw some of the fiercest fighting during World War II (Guadalcanal among other battles). Memories of those days are
Show More
still vivid. Sergeant Ben Kella of the Solomon Islands Police Force knows those days quite well, but he has many other things on his mind. Educated by the whites and now a member of their police force, Kella is still the aofia (spiritual peacekeeper) of the Lau people. His dual roles mean that neither the British colonial government nor the native peoples trust him 100%.New to the islands is Sister Conchita, a young Catholic nun from Chicago who chose her name because she thought she was being posted to South America and wanted to fit in. She wants to learn native customs and to help these people as much as she possibly can. Her vows of poverty and chastity won't be problems for her, but her vow of obedience may be a backbreaker. Her impetuous desire for doing the right thing means bent and broken rules everywhere she goes:
" In any case, it had always been her philosophy that it was better to apologize profusely after the event than to neglect an opportunity when it arose. "
Sergeant Kella has been busy. Within a matter of a few days, he's been cursed by a shaman, stumbled across evidence of an uprising, and been unable to find a missing American anthropologist. When he stops at one of the mission stations, he finds Sister Conchita trying to bury a skeleton on the sly. Little does he know that he'll soon be teaming up with Sister Conchita to solve a series of murders that tie in with all these strange happenings.
Plain and simple-- I loved this book. Author Graeme Kent was a Schools Broadcasting Officer in the Solomon Islands during the 1960s, and he immersed me in the culture of the place without being heavy-handed or pedantic. He also painted a vivid portrait of the Solomons during World War II with a very few strokes... just enough to fire the imagination and illuminate portions of the plot.
The two main characters, Sergeant Ben Kella and Sister Conchita, are two of the most interesting characters that I've come across recently in crime fiction. With their differences in culture and temperament and their similar penchant for doing what they think right regardless of the prattling of their superiors, they are going to make a wonderful crime-fighting team. (They're pretty good at cracking jokes, too.)
I can't wait for more books to appear in this series!
Show Less
LibraryThing member smik
Sister Conchita is new to Malaita. In fact, she's realatively new to being a nun, but she's wiry, resourceful, determined, and outspoken. In her training she studied island religions and Solomons culture although she has yet to come to terms with how island customs can live side by side with her
Ben Kella on the other hand was born on Malaita and has a dual leadership role. Since he was eight years old he has been the recognised aofia, the leader of the the Lau people of Malaita Island. In addition he represents the law, for he's a sergeant in the Solomons police force. He stands as bridge between the two cultures but often neither side sees him that way. Ben was brought to adulthood by the Catholic mission on Malaita, and he has an overseas university degree. But he has also rejected the Christian way, deciding he can only follow the "custom" way. He's an imposing figure, black, very big in many ways. The islanders call him a white black.
Kella had some problems prior to this novel, causing the death of a missionary, and was recalled to head office in Honiara for six months. Now he's being sent by his Chief Superintendent back to Malaita to find a missing American anthropologist, and told to focus just on that mission. Two days into his journey and already he is disobeying instructions. A village headman has asked him to assist in discovering what lies behind the unexpected death of an elderly widower. This involves him in participating in a session with a ghost-caller, bringing back the dead. From then we know that life is never simple if Ben Kella is around.
For a relatively short novel, DEVIL-DEVIL is complex. At the beginning I kept feeling that perhaps there had been an earlier novel, but in retrospect I don't think there was. It was just that the author had a certain amount of back-story that needed to be revealed as the plot developed.
Part of the novel's complexity comes from the fact that the author is showing us crimes such as deaths and theft in a Melanesian "custom" setting. There's an interesting but somewhat peculiar relationship developed between the policeman, who must be middle-aged, having fought in the war against Japan in early 1940s, and the young nun, just in her twenties. Adding to the complexity is the network of relationships and obligations that bind the islanders to each other, which outsiders like Sister Conchita and Kella's Chief Superintendent have great difficulty in understanding.
I found the final few pages a bit of a let-down and a bit tedious. It seems to rush the final explanations by telling rather than letting the reader form these conclusions from what they've seen. Nevertheless an interesting novel that holds that attention all the way.
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Catholicism. On her first day on Malaita she stops an Australian trader from removing protected glory shells from the island. She unwittingly makes an enemy who will try to kill her several times in the future, to make sure she never thwarts him again.Ben Kella on the other hand was born on Malaita and has a dual leadership role. Since he was eight years old he has been the recognised aofia, the leader of the the Lau people of Malaita Island. In addition he represents the law, for he's a sergeant in the Solomons police force. He stands as bridge between the two cultures but often neither side sees him that way. Ben was brought to adulthood by the Catholic mission on Malaita, and he has an overseas university degree. But he has also rejected the Christian way, deciding he can only follow the "custom" way. He's an imposing figure, black, very big in many ways. The islanders call him a white black.
Kella had some problems prior to this novel, causing the death of a missionary, and was recalled to head office in Honiara for six months. Now he's being sent by his Chief Superintendent back to Malaita to find a missing American anthropologist, and told to focus just on that mission. Two days into his journey and already he is disobeying instructions. A village headman has asked him to assist in discovering what lies behind the unexpected death of an elderly widower. This involves him in participating in a session with a ghost-caller, bringing back the dead. From then we know that life is never simple if Ben Kella is around.
For a relatively short novel, DEVIL-DEVIL is complex. At the beginning I kept feeling that perhaps there had been an earlier novel, but in retrospect I don't think there was. It was just that the author had a certain amount of back-story that needed to be revealed as the plot developed.
Part of the novel's complexity comes from the fact that the author is showing us crimes such as deaths and theft in a Melanesian "custom" setting. There's an interesting but somewhat peculiar relationship developed between the policeman, who must be middle-aged, having fought in the war against Japan in early 1940s, and the young nun, just in her twenties. Adding to the complexity is the network of relationships and obligations that bind the islanders to each other, which outsiders like Sister Conchita and Kella's Chief Superintendent have great difficulty in understanding.
I found the final few pages a bit of a let-down and a bit tedious. It seems to rush the final explanations by telling rather than letting the reader form these conclusions from what they've seen. Nevertheless an interesting novel that holds that attention all the way.
Show Less
LibraryThing member macabr
Sergeant Ben Kella plays two roles in the Solomon Islands in the early 1960′s. He is a member of the Solomon Islands Police Force and he is an aofia, a spiritual peacekeeper of the Lau people, a role for which he was chosen when he was a child. Kella is an educated islander, hand-picked by his
It is the early ’6o’s and tribal customs still hold sway over the majority of islanders who try to balance the old ways with the Christian education and conversions to Christianity that have been changing the society and culture of the islands. Sister Conchita of the Marist Mission Sisters has no such conflicts. An American and a Catholic by birth, she is a missionary by choice, a choice made willingly and bolstered by a deep commitment to the people she serves in the Pacific Islands. Bound by a vow of obedience to her bishop and to the director of her order, she is, nonetheless, blatantly outspoken and inclined to act before giving full consideration to the consequences. Believed by her bishop to be fully occupied by her various duties – looking after the native sisters, exporting the carvings made by the boys in the mission school, keeping the books for the mission station, supervising the medical center, inspecting the other schools in the region, and running the farm – Sister Conchita has no time to get into trouble.
Sister Conchita and Ben Kella could not be more different in their approaches to life but when they are brought together through strange circumstances, they make a formidable pair.
The American nun, new to the islands, makes an interesting first impression when she takes on John Deacon, one of the few white ex-patriots living in the Solomons. John Deacon smuggles antiquities by mixing priceless objects with copies made by school boys destined to be sold in down-market gift shops in Australia and Hawaii. Being called out by a nun, a Praying Mary, in front of his hirelings earns Sister Conchita a powerful enemy.
Ben Kella has a very different problem. Professor Mallory, an American anthropologist, is missing. He hasn’t been seen since he went into the mountains to find a pornographic icon that is worth a fortune. Ben’s life has been seriously complicated by a bones curse, a cargo cult uprising, a person who was murdered twice, and the discovery of the body of a man who disappeared during the Japanese occupation.
It is while Kella is watching the mission cemetery, looking for whoever was unearthing bones for the curse, that he meets Sister Conchita smuggling a skeleton into the cemetery, rather than out of it. There is just too much trafficking in bones, curses and all. The story is full of interesting people living in a part of the world very much underrepresented in crime fiction.
Ben Kella and Sister Conchita are great additions to Soho publishing’s list of memorable characters. They fit right in with those created by Leighton Gage, Cara Black, Jassy Mackenzie, David Downing, Matt Beynon Rees, and Peter Lovesey among others.
DEVIL-DEVIL is more than a great mystery. Graeme Kent provides an absorbing look at the world in 1960, a world only fifteen years beyond World War II. The Allies were successful in driving the Japanese out of Guadalcanal but only after six months of heavy fighting. Ben Kella is in his early thirties in the book but was a soldier fighting with the British against the occupying Japanese forces when he was only fourteen. Communication among the far-reaching communities in the Solomon Islands are conducted by radio each night. The British still control the islands as part of the British empire.
The author makes frequent reference to the Marching Rule, which may be a corruption of the term Maasina Ruru which refers to emancipation from the colonial government by the British. The movement may well have grown out of the respectful treatment the islanders received from African-American soldiers with whom they worked. The islanders formed the Solomon Islands Labor Corps which assisted with the allied war effort between 1942 and 1946. Even more fascinating are the references to “cargo custom”. There is a “cargo cult” in the Pacific Islands that developed from the islanders experience with the American GI’s. Airfields were built on the islands to allow tanks, refrigeration units, guns and ammunition, communication instruments, clothes, and food to be delivered to support US troops. Later, some of the same things were dropped from cargo planes onto the islands. To the islanders, these were gifts from the gods, especially one particularly generous one known as “Jon Frum”. The dark skin natives believed all these benefits came from black American soldiers who marched off the islands to battle but would be reborn and return to lead the islanders against their oppressors. It is thought that the name of this deity came from solders who introduced themselves as “John from America”. There is no question that cargo cults exist; whether the story about Jon Frum is true isn’t important. It is simply a really good story and a believable one in that the name “John” is so simple to remember.
I do love the internet and I love writers who love the countries about which they write and so teach their readers about the people and their customs. Who says mysteries are mindless entertainment?
Ben Kella and Sister Conchita are great additions to Soho publishing’s list of memorable characters. They fit right in with those created by Leighton Gage, Cara Black, Jassy Mackenzie, David Downing, Matt Beynon Rees, and Peter Lovesey among others. Soho publishes books that are unfailingly entertaining and absorbing, showcasing the works of authors who live and breathe the atmosphere of the countries they bring to life on the pages of their books. If it is from Soho, it is worth reading.
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teachers at the Catholic school to attend a university in Australia. From there, he went for further training in police procedures in Great Britain as well as to work with the NYPD in Manhattan. All of these steps have guaranteed that Kella is accepted by neither the islanders nor the whites, especially those members of the British government who still control the Solomon Islands.It is the early ’6o’s and tribal customs still hold sway over the majority of islanders who try to balance the old ways with the Christian education and conversions to Christianity that have been changing the society and culture of the islands. Sister Conchita of the Marist Mission Sisters has no such conflicts. An American and a Catholic by birth, she is a missionary by choice, a choice made willingly and bolstered by a deep commitment to the people she serves in the Pacific Islands. Bound by a vow of obedience to her bishop and to the director of her order, she is, nonetheless, blatantly outspoken and inclined to act before giving full consideration to the consequences. Believed by her bishop to be fully occupied by her various duties – looking after the native sisters, exporting the carvings made by the boys in the mission school, keeping the books for the mission station, supervising the medical center, inspecting the other schools in the region, and running the farm – Sister Conchita has no time to get into trouble.
Sister Conchita and Ben Kella could not be more different in their approaches to life but when they are brought together through strange circumstances, they make a formidable pair.
The American nun, new to the islands, makes an interesting first impression when she takes on John Deacon, one of the few white ex-patriots living in the Solomons. John Deacon smuggles antiquities by mixing priceless objects with copies made by school boys destined to be sold in down-market gift shops in Australia and Hawaii. Being called out by a nun, a Praying Mary, in front of his hirelings earns Sister Conchita a powerful enemy.
Ben Kella has a very different problem. Professor Mallory, an American anthropologist, is missing. He hasn’t been seen since he went into the mountains to find a pornographic icon that is worth a fortune. Ben’s life has been seriously complicated by a bones curse, a cargo cult uprising, a person who was murdered twice, and the discovery of the body of a man who disappeared during the Japanese occupation.
It is while Kella is watching the mission cemetery, looking for whoever was unearthing bones for the curse, that he meets Sister Conchita smuggling a skeleton into the cemetery, rather than out of it. There is just too much trafficking in bones, curses and all. The story is full of interesting people living in a part of the world very much underrepresented in crime fiction.
Ben Kella and Sister Conchita are great additions to Soho publishing’s list of memorable characters. They fit right in with those created by Leighton Gage, Cara Black, Jassy Mackenzie, David Downing, Matt Beynon Rees, and Peter Lovesey among others.
DEVIL-DEVIL is more than a great mystery. Graeme Kent provides an absorbing look at the world in 1960, a world only fifteen years beyond World War II. The Allies were successful in driving the Japanese out of Guadalcanal but only after six months of heavy fighting. Ben Kella is in his early thirties in the book but was a soldier fighting with the British against the occupying Japanese forces when he was only fourteen. Communication among the far-reaching communities in the Solomon Islands are conducted by radio each night. The British still control the islands as part of the British empire.
The author makes frequent reference to the Marching Rule, which may be a corruption of the term Maasina Ruru which refers to emancipation from the colonial government by the British. The movement may well have grown out of the respectful treatment the islanders received from African-American soldiers with whom they worked. The islanders formed the Solomon Islands Labor Corps which assisted with the allied war effort between 1942 and 1946. Even more fascinating are the references to “cargo custom”. There is a “cargo cult” in the Pacific Islands that developed from the islanders experience with the American GI’s. Airfields were built on the islands to allow tanks, refrigeration units, guns and ammunition, communication instruments, clothes, and food to be delivered to support US troops. Later, some of the same things were dropped from cargo planes onto the islands. To the islanders, these were gifts from the gods, especially one particularly generous one known as “Jon Frum”. The dark skin natives believed all these benefits came from black American soldiers who marched off the islands to battle but would be reborn and return to lead the islanders against their oppressors. It is thought that the name of this deity came from solders who introduced themselves as “John from America”. There is no question that cargo cults exist; whether the story about Jon Frum is true isn’t important. It is simply a really good story and a believable one in that the name “John” is so simple to remember.
I do love the internet and I love writers who love the countries about which they write and so teach their readers about the people and their customs. Who says mysteries are mindless entertainment?
Ben Kella and Sister Conchita are great additions to Soho publishing’s list of memorable characters. They fit right in with those created by Leighton Gage, Cara Black, Jassy Mackenzie, David Downing, Matt Beynon Rees, and Peter Lovesey among others. Soho publishes books that are unfailingly entertaining and absorbing, showcasing the works of authors who live and breathe the atmosphere of the countries they bring to life on the pages of their books. If it is from Soho, it is worth reading.
Show Less
LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50
Set in the beautiful Solomon Islands, Devil-Devil is the first book in Graeme Kent’s mystery series featuring Sergeant Ben Kella and Sister Conchita. Kella, a sergeant in the British controlled police force, is a local islander of the Lau people, he is also a hereditary spirit peacekeeper. Sister
It took me awhile to get into the story, but the descriptions of the culture and scenery of the islands kept me turning the pages. As I got deeper into the book I found the mystery gaining in importance, and soon I was involved in murder, missing people, and smuggled artifacts. Set in the early 1960’s with the promise of independence hovering on the horizon, the people of the Solomon Islands were struggling to blend their ancient ways and traditions while moving forward into a modern future. The British were facing an end to their colonial rule and hoping that eventual independence would ensure that the Solomon Islands would stay under their umbrella as part of the British Commonwealth.
Overall I enjoyed Devil-Devil for it complicated plot, it’s unusual setting and interesting history. The characters are realistic and likeable, so I can definitely see myself continuing on with this series.
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Conchita is a new arrival, a young American nun both earthy and pragmatic, her independent behaviour has a tendency to draw her into trouble.It took me awhile to get into the story, but the descriptions of the culture and scenery of the islands kept me turning the pages. As I got deeper into the book I found the mystery gaining in importance, and soon I was involved in murder, missing people, and smuggled artifacts. Set in the early 1960’s with the promise of independence hovering on the horizon, the people of the Solomon Islands were struggling to blend their ancient ways and traditions while moving forward into a modern future. The British were facing an end to their colonial rule and hoping that eventual independence would ensure that the Solomon Islands would stay under their umbrella as part of the British Commonwealth.
Overall I enjoyed Devil-Devil for it complicated plot, it’s unusual setting and interesting history. The characters are realistic and likeable, so I can definitely see myself continuing on with this series.
Show Less
LibraryThing member cbl_tn
Ben Kella is both a sergeant in the Solomon Islands police force and an aofia, one chosen to keep the peace between the clans on the island of Malaita. Sister Conchita is a newly arrived American nun assigned to a mission school on Malaita. Their paths cross after the disappearance of a white
The location and time both contribute to the appeal of this unusual first-in-series police procedural. It's 1960, and many of the male characters fought against the Japanese in World War II. The police headquarters is in the capital, Honiara, on Guadalcanal. The Solomon Islands are still under British control, but there is a growing awareness that independence won't be long in coming. Many expect that Kella will become the head of the police force once that happens. Kella realizes that his successes are a threat to his superiors and that he can't entirely trust them.
Traditional beliefs and customs drive much of the action in the novel. However, the emphasis on the supernatural is slight. Most of the events related to traditional religious beliefs are of human agency. Some Catholic readers might be bothered by one priest's acceptance and even promotion of traditional religion.
Recommended for readers who enjoy mysteries set in exotic locations.
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anthropologist and the discovery of a skeleton near the mission. Both of their lives are in danger until they figure out who is behind the crimes on Malaita. Kella must balance his job as a policeman with his spiritual role among his people.The location and time both contribute to the appeal of this unusual first-in-series police procedural. It's 1960, and many of the male characters fought against the Japanese in World War II. The police headquarters is in the capital, Honiara, on Guadalcanal. The Solomon Islands are still under British control, but there is a growing awareness that independence won't be long in coming. Many expect that Kella will become the head of the police force once that happens. Kella realizes that his successes are a threat to his superiors and that he can't entirely trust them.
Traditional beliefs and customs drive much of the action in the novel. However, the emphasis on the supernatural is slight. Most of the events related to traditional religious beliefs are of human agency. Some Catholic readers might be bothered by one priest's acceptance and even promotion of traditional religion.
Recommended for readers who enjoy mysteries set in exotic locations.
Show Less
LibraryThing member redheadish
Great first novel to a new series! Sister Conchita is my kind of girl wild at heart, I would love to hear a bit more description of Sgt. Kella to be more visually able to picture him! I just love any kind of crime / mystery books!
LibraryThing member Condorena
The history in this book is fascinating!
LibraryThing member nancynova
Mystery set on the Solomon Islands. The map in the front was a plus so you didn't get lost. I also had read several Pacific Island books before this one, so that helped with understanding the native culture & the gap that Kella is straddling. Sister Conchita didn't have much of a presence in the
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book, but was integral to solving the mystery. Show Less
Media reviews
Publisher's Weekly
Set in the Solomon Islands in 1960 when the country was a British protectorate, Kent's intriguing if uneven debut introduces Sgt. Ben Kella, whose position as aofia, or tribal spiritual peacekeeper, tends to bring him into conflict with his superiors in the British-run police force. Fresh from a
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case that earned him an official reprimand, Kella stirs up a new hornet's nest with his discovery of a skull with a bullet hole in it—which young American nun Sister Conchita is surreptitiously trying to bury. No sooner has he identified the victim as a long-missing Australian beachcomber than someone starts taking pot shots at Kella and the equally headstrong nun. As rumblings of a tribal uprising increase along with the body count, some readers might wish that Kent—who served eight years in the Solomons as head of BBC Schools broadcasting—had put more effort into maximizing suspense than exploring the islands' exotic indigenous culture. Show Less
Language
Original language
English
ISBN
9781616950606
Physical description
304 p.; 4.99 inches
Pages
304