The Launch of All Come to Dust in Bulawayo

 Bryony Rheam's second novel, All Come to Dust, was launched  in Bulawayo in the garden of the Zimbabwe Academy of Music. There was a good turn out and the socially distanced audience gave the book an enthusiastic welcome. Luckily the rain held off. The scene was set by Bryony's youngest daughter, Ellie, playing 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' (The Wizard of Oz features in the novel) on her violin. Drew Shaw introduced Bryony and Mzana Mthimkhulu also spoke at the launch about Bryony's writing. 

For those unable to attend the launch there was a book signing a few days later at Still Haven. All Come to Dust follows the success of Bryony's debut novel This September Sun. 

The new novel opens with Marcia Pullman being found dead at home in the leafy suburbs of Bulawayo. Chief Inspector Edmund Dube is onto the case at once, but it becomes increasingly clear that there are those, including the dead woman’s husband, who do not want him asking questions.The case drags Edmund back into his childhood to when his mother's employers disappeared one day and were never heard from again, an incident that has shadowed his life. As his investigation into the death progresses, Edmund realises the two mysteries are inextricably linked and that unravelling the past is a dangerous undertaking threatening his very sense of self.

Bryony Rheam is an enthusiast for the writing of Agatha Christie and, at one level, All Come to Dust can be read as a crime novel in Agatha Christie style set in an African city. But, as Bryony said in a recent interview in Mosi oa Tunya Review, 'All Come to Dust is more than just a crime novel in the sense that it is also an exploration of where we are today in Zimbabwe and how in so many senses we have lost our way.  We treat each other badly; we exploit the poor; we look after ourselves first. Each of the characters has some sort of problem that they have to overcome and each of them have a connection with the past that is holding them back.  I feel that in Zimbabwe, we constantly live in the shadow of the past.'

Comments from readers of the novel have been positive, including 'Loved every single page, even cried a couple of times' and 'I neglected everything yesterday so that I could finish the book - even during power cuts I was reading by lantern light! Agatha Christie would be very proud of you!'

Nigerian award winning writer Yejide Kilanko wrote that,'The beauty of All Come to Dust is its refusal to be called one thing. It’s complicated, just like life. We follow flawed, authentic characters as they navigate their changing world and acknowledge that the past, buried or not, always nips on the present’s heels.’ 

The novel is now available in Zimbabwe and online through the African Books Collective in North America. It will be available in bookshops and online in the United Kingdom later this year, jointly published by amaBooks and Parthian Books.