Bulawayo's Reading Africa Panel Discussion

 

Bulawayo writers discuss their writing, Zimbabwe's reading culture and their new projects as part of Catalyst Press' Reading Africa Project.

The recording is available through the link below:

Bulawayo's Reading Africa Panel 

Agatha in Africa - The International Agatha Christie Festival 2022

South Africa writers Michael Sears and Stan Trollip, with Zimbabwean writer Bryony Rheam on Agatha Christie's visit to Southern Africa, recorded as part of the 2022 International Agatha Christie Festival.

Bryony Rheam is the author of the double award-winning crime novel All Come to Dust. Michael Sears and Stan Trollip (writing as Michael Stanley) are the authors of the Detective Kubu series.

To watch, please use the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbQqDDPGCqs&t=21s

Garden Party welcomes Bryony Rheam to Wales

 Parthian Books organised a garden party to welcome Zimbabwean writer Bryony Rheam and her two daughters Sian and Ellie to Wales. The event, which took place in the garden of the Parthian offices in Cardigan, was attended by Parthian Directors Richard Davies and Gillian Griffiths, Publishing Manager Carly Holmes, several Parthian writers and supporters, and the directors of amaBooks, Bryony's Zimbabwe publishers and the co-publishers in the UK of All Come to Dust, Jane Morris and Brian Jones. Bryony and her daughters are spending time in west Wales (Bryony's mother's birthplace) as part of a visit to the United Kingdom.

Bryony's two novels, This September Sun and All Come to Dust, have already been published in the UK by Parthian, and in Zimbabwe by amaBooks, and her debut short story collection is due for publication next year.

Richard Davies, Bryony Rheam and Gillian Griffiths

Bryony Rheam

Bryony with Sian and Ellie

Bryony was delighted to discover that her novel All Come to Dust had been on display at the Book Council of Wales bookshop at the National Eisteddfod in Tregaron.

Bryony Rheam to talk at the 2022 Agatha Christie Festival

 Reproduced from The Standard (https://thestandard.newsday.co.zw/2022/06/26/rheam-to-take-part-on-agatha-christies-trip/)

AWARD-WINNING Bulawayo author Bryony Rheam (pictured) is preparing to give a speech on Agatha Christie’s 1922 trip to Southern Rhodesia, which is part of the Agatha Christie Festival 2022. Rheam, a winner of the international Write Your Own Christie competition, is an enthusiast for the writing of Agatha Christie.  The event will be held on September 15 at the Spanish Barn, Torquay at 12.30, admission is free.

“In September of this year, I will be giving a talk on Agatha Christie’s 1922 trip to Southern Rhodesia,” Rheam told Standard Style. “Earlier this year, I was contacted by a South African writer, Michael Sears, who, together with his co-author, Stanley Trollip, had been invited to give a talk on Agatha Christie’s trip to South Africa (as part of the same trip).“As he knew, I had written on Agatha Christie’s trip to Rhodesia, Sears asked me if I would like to join them in the talk.”

She said not many people know that Agatha Christie came to Rhodesia and many people just lump Rhodesia/Zimbabwe with South Africa.“I am really excited to be shedding light on this part of her journey and making people aware of the fact that Rhodesia/Zimbabwe and South Africa are two different countries,” Rheam said.

Zimbabwe cover

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“My interest in Agatha Christie began when I was a child. “My grandmother loved reading her books and I would go to the library for her to change her books so I knew all the covers and the titles. We used to watch all the series and films as a family and so they were very much a part of my life growing up. I was excited to discover that one of her lesser-known books, The Man in the Brown Suit, was partly set in Southern Rhodesia, mostly in Bulawayo and Victoria Falls.”

UK cover

Rheam added: “I then set out to investigate her journey and see if I could find any evidence that she had been here.  I wrote about this in my blog.”

All Come to Dust is Rheam’s second book,  written in the style of a Christie detective storyThe novel is set in modern day Zimbabwe, but it also looks back to the time just before independence.

How do authors create their characters - with John Eppel, Violette Kee-Tui, Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu and Bryony Rheam

 Four Bulawayo novelists John Eppel, Violette Kee-Tui, Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu and Bryony Rheam in discussion about how they create characters in their novels with Dr Drew Shaw. 

Recorded at The Orange Elephant in Bulawayo, with the support of The Centre for English Excellence and The Orange Elephant.

The links to the three sections of the discussion are below:

Section One

Section Two

Section Three

Hans M. Zell's Series of Profiles of Women in African Publishing

from: https://brittlepaper.com/2022/05/check-out-this-database-on-women-publishing-book-trade-in-africa/

Women in African Publishing & the Book Trade: A Series of Profiles is a listing of women working in the publishing industry across the African continent.

The list is curated by the Swiss publisher Hans M. Zell and aims “to showcase…the variety, richness and energy of women involved in book publishing and the book trade in Africa today, as well as some of the women who have made significant contributions to the African book sector in the past.”

In the first edition of the list published inThe African Book Publishing Record, 24 women were profiled. Ghana’s Deborah Ahenkorah, to Nigeria’s Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, to Rwanda’s Louise Umutoni, and South Africa’s Colleen Higgs are some of the profiles featured.

The new edition is an additional 28 names from across 8 countries. It includes established names like Kenya’s Muthoni Garland, founder of Storymoja, the Nigerian editor Enajite Efemuaye, Managing Editor of Farafina Books and co-founder of Society of Book and Magazine Editors of Nigeria (SBMEN), Uganda’s Hilda Twongyeirwe, Executive Director of FEMRITE, and Trish Mbanga, former Director, Zimbabwe International Book Fair.

The kind of information included in the listings are wide-ranging, from basics about the women and their work including positions held, company/organization’s name, contact address, website, publication etc. to social media handles and links to interviews and press coverage.

The list is a great networking tool, making it easier to connect with African women in the publishing industry. It is also a storytelling project of sorts, in the ways it shines a light on the increasing influence of African women in publishing, showing the changes taking place in an industry that has not always championed gender equality.

The scope of the second edition has been extended to include academics involved in publishing education and training, and who have written extensively, and eloquently, about many aspects of publishing and book history in Africa.

The directory does not, however, currently include women who are literary agents, or editors and publishers of journals or literary magazines.

Click on the link below to access the directory:

https://brittlepaper.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Women-in-African-Publishing-the-Book-Trade-A-Series-of-Profiles-by-Hans-M.-Zell.pdf

All Come To Dust by Bryony Rheam — enter the mysterious detective

Review of All Come to Dust, a murder mystery novel set in Zimbabwe by Bryony Rheam

from BookerTalk May 24, 2022  https://bookertalk.com/all-come-to-dust-by-bryony-rheam-enter-the-mysterious-detective/

Bryony Rheam’s Zimbabwean crime fiction novel All Come To Dust offers a detective who is as much a mystery as the murder he is meant to be investigating.  Chief Inspector Edmund Dude models himself on the quick witted, perceptive detectives he’s seen in countless films and TV programmes. He is particularly fond of The Saint. Edmund is itching for a chance to prove he’s their equal and not simply the guy who sits in a back office in a shabby Bulawayo police station organising paper work and files. 

His chance comes with the death of wealthy ex-pat Marcia Pullman, a woman  who nobody likes and everyone seems to have had a reason to want out of the picture. She bullies her staff, lords it over other members of her book club and looks down her nose at other ex-pats who have fallen victim to Zimbabwe’s rampant inflation.

Edmund’s determination to discover the person responsible for Marcia’s death is frustrated at every turn. Her maid servant and people who knew her fail to pass on key pieces of information or deliberately try to mislead Edmund. Given the run around by the pathologist and denied access to the case files, Edmund comes to suspect that the dead woman’s husband is using his connections high up in the police force to get the case closed down as fast as possible.

Despite being told more than once by his senior officer to keep his nose out of the case and go back to sorting out paperwork, Edmund perseveres. He turns out to be an unorthodox detective who bumbles along with the reluctant help of a heavy-drinking odd job man as unofficial “assistant”. Together they mount night time surveillance operations and stage house break-ins to search for documents. 

Edmund is a complex man, a loner and an outsider who looks for order and structure in his life. We learn his backstory through a series of flashbacks to his childhood in 1979. They reveal a mystery in his own life: the fate of the couple who were his mother’s employers. They had taken Edmund under their wing and ensured he got a good education. But one day when he was still a boy, they just disappeared. 

There’s a further mystery about the Chief Inspector and his role in the police force that comes to light very late in the novel. It would spoil the book for other readers so I’ll just say that the mystery within a mystery within a mystery structure adds an interesting dimension to All Come to Dust. It makes it far more than just another police procedural.

It’s a carefully structured novel that touches on issues of class, race and the colonial legacy in modern day Bulawayo. More significantly it highlights the way young and poor black Zimbabwean girls become prey to unscrupulous people with empty promises of a better life in another country.

The plot takes a while to unravel and comes with more than its fair share of red herrings until it ends with an Agatha Christie style denouement. It was a little too long for my tastes but I did enjoy the novel’s insights into life in Zimbabwe.

All Come to Dust will definitely appeal to readers who enjoy character-driven crime fiction with plenty of twists and a memorable and unusual detective figure.

Footnotes

Bryony Rheam was born in Zimbabwe and currently lives with her family in Bulawayo. Her first novel This September Sun was named best first book in the Zimbabwe Book Publishers’ Association Awards in 2010. All Come To Dust, her second novel. was chosen as one of ten top African thrillers in Publishers Weekly, who described it as a “stunning crime debut". It was first published in Zimbabwe in May 2021 and worldwide by the Welsh independent press Parthian Books in March 2022.

Glued to Book reviews Bryony Rheam's All Come to Dust

Reproduced from https://gluedtobook.wordpress.com/2022/04/23/all-come-to-dust-review-329/

 Chief Inspector Edmund Dube is introduced in All Come to Dust as he investigates the stabbing of a rich woman, Marcia Pullman. He is then refused access to the case, and police documents, and is removed from the case after it is determined she died of renal failure. Edmund’s past is revealed in a sequence of flashbacks to 1979 as he continues his investigation. A slow-paced police procedural set in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, with subtle references to race, class, mental health, memory, and colonialism.

All Come to Dust, a mystery by Bryony Rheam, is a classic murder investigation steeped in Zimbabwean culture. Many components of the book can only take place in such settings, and they are necessary for the novel to evolve in the first place. The protagonist is a lone wolf with a complicated personality and backstory who is dedicated to completing his task. The characters are well-developed, albeit slowly, with just enough cliches or stereotypes to lead the reader to believe they already know something. At the same time, the plot is both compelling and tiny or contained. It takes its time unraveling and provides enough red herrings mixed in with its hints along the way to make you want to keep reading and not feel cheated out of a satisfying conclusion. Throughout, it is a portrayal of how class, race, and gender still work in contemporary Zimbabwe, not so much an indictment as a laying bare of how injustice and privilege are still baked into everyday life, and the attempts of diverse individuals to break free.

This is an intriguing and often amusing look at a crime that isn’t a crime, as examined by a man who draws inspiration from books and movies. The reader is given the perspectives of all the suspects, however, it’s difficult to believe any of them. In the end, I enjoyed this story. It grew heavier than I had anticipated and dealt with several difficulties I’m currently working through. If you’re seeking a mystery that also serves as a character study of Zimbabwe, this is the book for you.

Novelist Bryony Rheam on Winning Path

 Reproduced from the newsletter of the Writers International Network of Zimbabwe: 

WIN LITERARY NEWSLETTER, VOL 2, ISSUE 19, which celebrated the winning writers from the 2022 Zimbabwe National Arts Merit Awards.

by Beaven Tapureta

Bryony Rheam shows her recent accolade from the 2022 NAMA Awards.
Her second novel All Come To Dust won the Outstanding Fiction Book award.

  

EVERY writer dreams of success and success usually happens when one commits him/herself to art. Many writers have fallen by the wayside after their books failed them. No sales, no recognition, no reviews.

But while winning matters, one has to consider working hard with a heart of faith. Writing is an act of faith, so said someone.

For Bryony Rheam, recognition gauges the reader response for a book. And when a book keeps on winning, she says it shows that readers are connecting with the themes tackled. 

After her debut novel This September Sun (2009, AmaBooks) won the Best First Book at the Zimbabwe Book Publishers Association Awards in 2010, she was in 2014 winner of the International ‘Write Your Own Christie’ Competition, a competition dedicated to the international writer Agatha Christie whom Bryony has put on top of her favourite writers list.

“I have been an Agatha Christie fan for a very long time. I enjoy the books because the focus is on the mystery, not the murder. I like solving the puzzle. Modern crime writers focus more on the murder and enjoy lots of gory details, but the actual mystery is not that exciting,” said Bryony. 

This September Sun went on to be selected as set text for ZIMSEC Advanced Level Literature in English in Zimbabwe from 2012 to 2017.

WIN once published a comment by a literature student who said she remembers one day her teacher shed tears while reading to the class a touching passage in the novel. Indeed, such is the power of Bryony’s words as a story-teller.

All Come To Dust (2020, AmaBooks), her second and recent novel, has joined the winning streak.

Late last year it scooped a literary award at the Bulawayo Arts Awards and this February it won the Outstanding Fiction Award at the NAMA Awards.

Bryony told WIN how she feels about the overall success of her books.

“I feel both my novels have been successful, especially in Zimbabwe. Their success shows that readers are connecting with the issues they raise,” she said.

All Come To Dust is a crime thriller, falling in the class of another African novel Five Nights Before The Summit (2019, Weaver Press) by USA-based Zambian author Mukuka Chipanta.

There seems to be an attempt by writers to fill in the gap of crime fiction in English. For example, Sinister Motive by South Africa-based Zimbabwean emerging writer Wellington Mudhluri also uses the crime fiction genre which was once popular with Shona novelists of yore.

However, the use of various genres by Zimbabwean writers to speak about local issues is what Bryony applauds.

“I feel there is a need for Zimbabwean writers to explore different genres and use them as ways to reflect life in this country,” said Bryony.

Her words confirm what renowned writer NoViolet Bulawayo said last month in The New York Times: “We have to insist on imagining the worlds that we want to see.”  NoViolet was speaking about her new book Glory which one critic described as ‘a modern African Animal Farm’, meaning it explores a different ‘Animal Farm approach’ to highlight certain issues affecting Zimbabwe.

Truly, by using the imagination and exploring various forms of writing, writers can deal with issues troubling our motherland.

 (Read an interview with Bryony published in our previous issue, DOWN MEMORY LANE )

All Come to Dust reviewed in Grumpy Old Books

Reproduced from http://grumpyoldbooks.blogspot.com/2022/04/all-come-to-dust-by-bryony-rheam.html

All Come To Dust by Bryony Rheam

 526 pages 

You can buy All Come To Dust...Here 

You can follow Bryony Rheam's blog...Here 

 I have received a free copy of this book from amaBooks and Parthian Books in exchange for an open and honest review. 

The Blurb... 

Marcia Pullman has been 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. 

My Review... 

Well, what an unexpected gem. 

All Come To Dust tells the story of black Police Officer Edmund investigating the murder of wealthy ex-pat Marcia Pullman in modern day Zimbabwe. I think the book succeeds because it engages the reader on many levels. 

Firstly there is an excellent, convoluted, multi-layered murder mystery ala Agatha Christie or PD James. Or I should say there are three mysteries at play. Who (if anyone) murdered Marcia Pullman, who defiled her corpse and what happened to the McDougal family. The McDougal family were Edmund's mother's employers who took a special interest in Edmund, ensuring that he got a good education. However, one day during Edmund's childhood they just disappeared. 

 

There is also a slightly comedic/tragic aspect to Edmund. He is a very shy, bookish introvert bumbling along in his investigation. He finds a collaborator in semi-alcoholic, white-trash, handyman Craig. Craig is a cynical and resentful man. Set this against the incompetent and corrupt background of the comically under resourced Zimbabwe Police Force and it can make for a situation ripe for ridicule. 

In addition the author offers some very interesting takes on a culture that is alien to most western readers and one that would also seem to be in a slow decline. She gives a fascinating insight into the once powerful but now diminishing white Zimbabwe/ ex Rhodesian community. 

As well as the regional insights into class, culture and colour of her community, the author also portrays parts of the universal human experience very well. Loneliness, religion, despair and hope are deftly handled. How the past comes back constantly and intertwines with the present is also a thread throughout this intriguing novel. 

The first part of the novel is steadily paced, but ramps towards the end and the denouement, where Edmund gathers the suspects together and goes through their various, nefarious and complicated intrigues one by one. If there was a tweak to be made, I think the complex plot and numerous back stories, while all well done, means the narrative is possibly slightly too long. 

I started this book expecting a bog standard cozy crime caper. I was pleasantly surprised. The balance of cozy to crime was just how I like it. The hinterland of excellent socio-political with a philosophical tinge writing was a huge bonus. 

Selected Quotes... 

"I envy you, Chief Inspector. 

Me? Why? 

Because you're black. You belong to a community, a race. Living here, being white is such a burden. We've been cut adrift from wherever we came from, amputated like a gangrenous leg that no longer works. We have no roots, no base."

"The kind of policeman she was used to was watchful but for other reasons. Their eyes followed you with a watchful greed. How could they get what they wanted be it money or goods - or sex? But the truth, the truth was rarely something a police officer looked for unless it benefited them in some way."

"I went to Sir Herbert Stanley Primary School, he said without really knowing why he said it. In his embarrassment he wanted to find a reason for his intelligence, as though he didn't deserve it. I was very fortunate to have been sent there by my mother's employers. 

Her wry smile broadened. You're very lucky. But intelligence has little to do with education. I know a lot of educated people who aren't very clever at all."

"Always he felt the loss of that faith. It was like the loss of a childhood belief in fairies or Father Christmas. What was the difference in those beliefs - God and Father Christmas - except at a certain age someone told you the truth about the latter and let you get on with the former? What would life be like as an adult if you still believed in a fat bearded man who came down the chimney once a year? You'd be mad. Yet a God who was never seen, never had been seen, lived on and on - and on." 

About the Author... 

Bryony Rheam was born in Kadoma, Zimbabwe. Her debut novel This September Sun won Zimbabwe's Best First Book Award in 2010 and reached Number 1 on Amazon Kindle in the UK. She has also published a range of short stories in anthologies. In 2014, she won an international competition to write a chapter of an Agatha Christie novel. She has attended the Ake Book and Arts festival in Abeokuta, Nigeria and Africa Utopia at the Southbank Centre in London. Rheam is a recipient of the 2018 Miles Morland Writing scholarship. She is an English teacher at Girls’ College and lives in Bulawayo with her partner and their two children.

Agatha and I

 

Agatha and I, by Bryony Rheam, is reproduced from https://murderiseverywhere.blogspot.com/2022/03/agatha-and-i.html

Bryony Rheam

Bryony Rheam is a Zimbabwean author who lives with her family in Bulawayo. Her debut novel This September Sun won Best First Book award in Zimbabwe and went to #1 on Kindle in the UK. Her new book, All Come to Dust, also an award winner, was chosen as one of ten top African thrillers by Publishers’ Weekly who described it as a “stunning crime debut”. I loved the book, and it was my pick of mysteries set in Africa for 2021. Paula Hawkins (author of The Girl on the Train) clearly felt the same way, describing the protagonist, Chief Inspector Edmund Dube, as “a fictional detective as memorable as Hercule Poirot”.

That would have made Bryony’s day because of her long association with Agatha Christie’s books. Here she tells us about that and how it motivated All Come to Dust.

Welcome Bryony to MurderIsEverywhere. Michael Sears

In preparing what to write for this blog, I looked back on some old blogposts of mine where I discussed the importance of Agatha Christie in my life. One of the lines stands out for me and seems to have taken on a deeper meaning than I meant at the time. I had just finished researching Agatha Christie’s trip to Rhodesia in 1924, a trip that resulted in her writing her third novel, The Man in the Brown Suit, and I had delighted in being able to follow her on part of her journey to Bulawayo and Victoria Falls. I wrote: ‘When I began my research, I thought I was following Agatha Christie on part of her journey, but now I wonder if the journey hasn't become my own.’

My journey with Agatha Christie began many years ago with my maternal grandmother. She was a lovely lady: very clever, well-read and funny. Having left school at the age of fourteen, she was largely self-taught. She loved to read, and she read anything and everything, but, in particular, she loved Agatha Christie. On Friday afternoons, I would take her books to the library for her, and I would exchange one lot of Agatha Christies for another.

She must have read them all; she must have read them two or three times, but it did not bother her. As an adult, and as an ardent fan of Christie’s myself, I now understand part of this desire to read and reread her novels. My grandmother was brokenhearted - she had lost her son in a car accident when he was twenty-one. She struggled, but she could not overcome severe depression and grief. All reading provides an escape, but with Christie it was so much more.

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie is considered the "Queen of Crime". Although not alone in doing so, she is credited with the development of the crime novel into what we know today and its growth in popularity. She is best known for a "closed murder" story in which the crime can only have been committed by a limited number of people, each with their own particular motive for doing so. Everyone is a suspect and usually it is the least obvious person who "dunnit".

The murders are not gory; there are no detailed descriptions of prolonged deaths, the pain and injuries inflicted or the mutilated body. That is not important. What is, is the method and the motivation. The planning behind the murders is always meticulous: the murderer knows who will be where when, how many minutes he or she has to cross the garden and enter the study window, how important it is that the poison is administered with the bedtime cocoa and not the after-dinner coffee, or how the drinks on the tray must be arranged just so in order that the victim chooses the correct one.

Of course, they make other errors which eventually lead to their downfall. Yet it is this absolute attention to detail that I believe makes Christie novels so intriguing. It’s the puzzle that’s important and puzzles can eventually be solved. All the pieces are there; the reader just has to put them together correctly – which of course we rarely, if ever, do – and that’s exactly where Christie’s genius lies.

Despite her upper-middle class background, Agatha Christie always felt like something of an outsider, which likely accounts for two of her most famous detectives, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, being on the margins of society: Poirot is a foreigner and Marple is elderly. As such, they are able to bring attention to both the idiosyncrasies and the shortcomings of English society.

But there is another way in which Christie undermines the very essence of Englishness, and, in doing so, also undercuts the stereotypes associated with it. Her books capture that beautiful feel of an orderly life: the clock ticking in the drawing room, the letters on the breakfast tray, the train arriving at exactly three minutes past four. Her characters who lead such orderly lives are well-spoken, polite and know which spoon is for the soup and which for the dessert. The undermining of all this is what unsettles us so much. How could the vicar’s wife devise a murder so clever and with such calculation that it takes the powers of a super sleuth to detect the flaws? How could the murderer have written such hateful letters in the beautiful library; how could they have thought of putting poison in the tea served so punctually at four o’clock on the terrace?

It unsettles us. Christie takes us into the dark areas of the places we consider safe. More than that, the very things that add to that lovely slow rhythm of conventionally English life - trains that run on time, tea at four o’clock, an efficient postal system - seem to have been used against us. If these things, these people, these places are unsafe, then where is not? We would feel less vulnerable on the streets of New York or in the ganglands of Glasgow. As readers, we feel we have got into the car of the stranger our parents always warned us about. But they were smiling, they were welcoming, they had double-barrelled surnames we say – and so we seal our doom.

The good thing, of course, is that she rescues us. The detective arrives, the plot is worked out and the murderer is caught. Except perhaps for Murder on the Orient Express, everything is sorted out and any loose ends are firmly tied up. The puzzle is solved and the dark places dissolve. Once again, the calm ticking of the clock is restored. That is what I find so satisfying and that is what appealed so much to my grandmother. She had come to fear life. Her experience told her that anything can be taken from you at any time, even people you love with your entire self. Being a good person, living a good life – what did it mean? It was no guarantee that you wouldn’t be dealt a terrible hand. But if the dark places were not made light in her own life, at least they were in fiction.

Bryony with Matthew Pritchard

In 2014, I was a winner of the Write Your Own Christie competition organised by AgathaChristie.com.  The prize was dinner with Agatha Christie’s grandson, Matthew Pritchard, and her publisher at HarperCollins at Greenway, her home in Devon.  It was an emotional moment for me, one that linked the little girl who spent afternoons listening to her grandmother’s stories of life in India and Persia to the adult with a longing to write a crime novel of her own.

Outside Agatha Christie's House in Greenway

Yet it was to be another six years before this became a reality. All Come To Dust was published in Zimbabwe in November 2020, the UK in September 2021, and in the US this month. When I sat down to write it, I wanted to follow the structure of a classic Christie novel. However, there were some very obvious differences that I had to negotiate: present day Bulawayo is very different to the England that Christie wrote of from the 1920s to the 1970s. A closed murder seemed unlikely; in fact, it felt claustrophobic. The more I thought and planned, the more that it became apparent that many of the conventional tropes of the western crime novel would not work.

Zimbabwe’s police force is riddled with corruption.  It is also generally quite inefficient and there would certainly be very little forensic investigation into a death. However, I still decided to use a policeman to investigate the murder. He is also an outsider, a man who wants to do good in a world that seems overwhelmingly corrupt. He spends his time typing up traffic offences, trying to put the world to rights through the meticulous recording of events that will probably be settled by the payment of a bribe to someone on the force.

The lack of forensic investigation was a bonus for me as I, like Agatha Christie, could concentrate on the puzzle and not get weighed down by having to bring in technical detail. Nor did I go into any great description of the murder itself for I do not feel the need to do so. This is probably one of the reasons why reviewers often describe All Come To Dust as ‘an old-fashioned’ murder.

Yet this would suggest a ‘happy ending’ and, while it is true, that the mystery itself is solved, there is also a strong sense that any form of justice in Zimbabwe is not administered in the conventional way.  The sense of restored order evident at the end of an Agatha Christie novel is also not present. The peace is hesitant, wary, aware always that it is under threat.

Modern Day Bulawayo

I might not have set out to undermine the archetypal crime novel, but it became increasingly clear that the structure did not sit well in an African setting. It seemed obvious therefore to try and highlight this disconnect rather than ignore it. In doing so, I was able to explore modern Zimbabwean society through an eclectic range of characters, each bound in some way to the past and fearful of the future.

When I finished writing All Come To Dust, I decided that I would not write another crime novel. I had set myself a challenge and I had completed it. But now I see crime writing offers so many opportunities to explore the inconsistencies evident in Zimbabwean life. And so it is that the quest to follow Agatha Christie’s journey has led me to a journey of my own. I can only be excited of what lies ahead.

Bryony is to participate, with Michael Sears, at this year's International Agatha Christie Festival.

All Come to Dust 'is way above five stars'

To simply describe this beautifully written, densely textured, novel as a murder mystery would be an egregious understatement. To describe it as a police procedural, or a maverick cop, or a psychological thriller – for it is all of these – would similarly undersell it. To set the scene, the story centres around Edmund Dube, a black Zimbabwean, at two specific points in his life. In 1979, aged seven (the Jesuitical age when personality is formed), he is almost the only non-white pupil at a prestigious school in Bulawayo, Rhodesia. His access to the school had been facilitated by Chief Inspector McDougal, for whom Edmund’s mother worked as a maid. Now, in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, he is Detective Chief Inspector Edmund Dube. The cultural shifts evidenced in that name change underpin this book but are subliminal not overt. The reader doesn’t need to know the history because the writing provides the ambience.

When a woman is reported as murdered, Edmund rushes off to investigate and quickly establishes that the paperknife buried in the centre of her chest is not the murder weapon, because she was dead before she was stabbed. The deceased is a white woman, Marcia Pullman, part of the dwindling number of such individuals, rich, influential, a pillar of society and detested by almost everyone. Her husband is a beefy, obnoxious, functioning alcoholic who, on the face of it, runs a safari company. Both of these sound like stereotypes, caricatures, but in this writer’s hands they are neither. Edmund begins an investigation but is swiftly removed from the case (if a natural death embellished with a dagger actually constitutes a case) and side-lined, ridiculed. Clearly the Pullmans have enormous influence within this kleptocracy. Edmund, and an unlikely (indeed random) assistant, must try to resolve if there is a murder; if so who is the murderer; what illegal activities surround the Pullmans' apparent control of the local powers-that-be? And what connection, if any, is there with his childhood?

The quality of the writing, the skilful use of metaphor, the sense of place, the depth of the characterisation, the intricacy of the plot, combine to produce a singular work. This book is way above five stars.

 from Denis Wheller, Goodreads

Bryony Rheam wins the Zimbabwe National Arts Merit Award for Outstanding Fiction

The Zimbabwean writer Bryony Rheam has added to her list of accolades by being awarded the Zimbabwean National Arts Merit Award in the category Outstanding Fiction. The award is for her novel All Come to Dust, which was initially published in Zimbabwe before being co-published by Parthian Books and amaBooks in the UK. The National Arts Merit Awards are the premier award given by the National Arts Council of Zimbabwe in recognition of outstanding achievements in the arts and culture. The inaugural award ceremony was held in February 2002. Since then, the award ceremonies have been held in February each year to recognise artists who had excelled in the previous year. The exception is this year's awards, which, because of Covid 19 restrictions, considered the work of artists from the previous two years.

All Come to Dust  was previously recognised in November 2021 by winning the Bulawayo Arts Award for Outstanding Literary Work (Fiction). 

Her novel, in which Detective Chief Inspector Edmund Dube investigates the suspicious death of socialite Marcia Pullman with the assistance of the ‘mullet hairstyled’ Craig Martin, can be considered a long-simmering, intriguing, twisting murder mystery. But it is also an incisive depiction of life in present-day  Bulawayo and of how the injustice and privilege of the past are still baked into everyday life.

Bryony Rheam commented: 

'I'm delighted that All Come to Dust is doing so well. Winning these two Zimbabwean awards is a reflection of the fact that local readers can identify with the plot and the issues it raises. It is a great honour to be recognised in my own country and this gives me the impetus to carry on. 

However, the book is not confined to Zimbabwean readers. I have been heartened by the number of reviewers and other readers who have said that they learned something about Zimbabwe and its history through reading the book. I believe that place and time affect the feel of a book, but characters are generally universal and they are what interests readers most. I didn't initially intend to write another crime novel, but now I see it as an interesting way to explore society. The African crime novel is different to the Western one for a number of reasons and I think that makes it quite an exciting genre to be exploring right now.'

All Come to Dust shortlisted for the Outstanding Fiction Book category of the Zimbabwe National Arts Merit Awards

 

Following her success at the Bulawayo Arts Awards for Outstanding Literary Work: Fiction, congratulations to Bryony Rheam for her novel All Come to Dust being selected by the adjudicators of the Zimbabwe National Arts Merit Awards as one of the three nominees for Outstanding Fiction Book for the two year period 2020 and 2021.

Congratulations to the other shortlisted writers in this category:  

 Leroy Mthulisi Ndlovu for Sirens:Tales of Youth and Love and Abraham Makamera for Mboni.

Britain Zimbabwe Society Review of All Come to Dust

 Reproduced from www.britainzimbabwe.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/BZS-Review_Dec21.pdf

British Zimbabwe Society Review: Issue 21/4 December 2021

Pat Brickhill on a Bulawayo-based detective story 

All Come to Dust, by Bryony Rheam 

Bryony Rheam has written a ground-breaking book – a captivating detective story set entirely in present-day Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Rheam explores a different writing style from her debut novel, This September Sun, and presents the reader with a story that is more than the traditional detective genre (and which perhaps embraces several genres). The novel opens as we meet Chief Inspector Edmund Dube shortly after a murder has been committed in the leafy inner suburbs of Bulawayo. Marcia Pullman, a wealthy but unpopular socialite, has been discovered dead in her bedroom. Dube, who is an apparently high-ranking policeman, is in on the case (despite a lack of co-operation from his colleagues) . Reminiscent of Agatha Christie All Come to Dust is reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s work, as Bryony Rheam leaves tantalising clues and red herrings, leading the reader down several cul-de-sacs. The initial pace of the novel was slow but I enjoyed the book more as the pace increased. Chief Inspector Dube meets Craig Martin on the day of the murder and commandeers his battered Renault to reach the scene of the crime. Martin is destined to play a central, sometimes comical role. The eccentric Edmund Dube appears even more of an enigma than Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot. At times it was difficult to fully accept his role as the protagonist and, in spite of the difficulties he grappled with as a child and now as an adult, I struggled to feel compassion or much fondness for him. On the other hand, the oddball Craig Martin is far more developed as a character. He almost demands our attention as we find out about his struggles with life. Flashbacks reveal both men’s childhood experiences: Edmund Dube has grown up straddling two cultures, and feels unaccepted by both the black and white communities, while Craig Martin has survived an unhappy and sometimes tragic childhood.  

I applaud the author’s decision to weave social commentary through her story. She refers to the realities, inequalities and prejudices familiar to anyone who grew up in Rhodesia and after 1980 Zimbabwe when, among other changes, facilities previously reserved for whites were opened to all races. Bryony Rheam shares her knowledge of the majestic Bulawayo landscape with striking portrayal of the everyday life and struggles that have affected so many Zimbabweans, especially in the last 20 years. She handles her subject sensitively, though strongly enough to make the reader aware that all was not well in society when Edmund Dube was a boy. This state of affairs affected not only his immediate family (his father goes to join the struggle and his mother has to support him by working a domestic worker in town) but also the country as a whole. Edmund, fairly unusually, is taken into the home and under the wing of a Scottish couple, the MacDougals, who employ his mother. They appear to do all they can to provide opportunities which, otherwise, he might not have had. Archibald MacDougal is also a policeman, a Detective Inspector, and this seems to provide the inspiration for Edmund’s later career choice. Another legacy of the MacDougals is Edmund’s unusual passion for fictional and television British detectives. 

Very cleverly, the reader is left guessing, almost to the end of the book, as to the reason for the crime or identity of the murderer. Edmund Dube – like Poirot – gathers the potential murderers together and questions each in turn to identify the real culprit. Bryony Rheam’s story telling is gripping, very clever, sometimes sad, often amusing, but very occasionally I felt was not totally credible. I found the closing pages of the book as she tied up all the loose ends a little too neatly and the convenient connections slightly unconvincing – perhaps because she presented us with rather too many potential murderers and a victim without a single redeeming quality. While this may not be have been completely my cup of tea, I congratulate Bryony Rheam on her achievement and I am sure we have not seen the last of this Zimbabwean writer. I think fans of the traditional detective story will enjoy this book. 

NB Magazine Review of All Come to Dust

 Reproduced from NB Magazine's January Crime Fiction Round Up

All Come to Dust by Bryony Rheam

An intriguing Zimbabwean murder mystery, Rheam’s Bulawayo set crime novel is at once comforting for its cosy crime scenario but also disturbing for its subversion of the associated tropes creating a more complex and relevant read. The writing is easy, hinting at a golden age style tale of skulduggery, opening with a woman found dead in her bedroom, stabbed with a letter opener. However, this is Zimbabwe not Surrey and Rheam explores themes of racism and the colonial legacy and how those things haven’t changed enough while policing has got harder and poorer.

Marcia Pullman of 274 Clark Road does all her own cooking for her little social gatherings, there is one today. She deems the ‘girl’ Dorcas useless and the gardener, Malakai, had to be fired for incompetence and laziness. Food prepared, Dorcas sent out for the afternoon, Marcia lies down for a rest before book club. Later when the first guest arrives and Dorcas returns they are surprised there’s no sign of Marcia downstairs. Eventually venturing to the mistress's bedroom Marcia’s body is found.

Chief Inspector Edmund Dube of the Bulawayo central police station is grappling with another report, there are no Ss or Rs on his typewriter. He dreams of solving a real crime so, when a constable comes looking for super Detective Inspector Khumalo, Edmund jumps in to take the case. A white woman in the suburb has been killed and the missing gardener is the prime suspect. Edmund has to get a lift to the crime scene from a citizen outside the station. When Dorcas sees the commandeered driver she says he is the killer, she saw him argue with Marcia before, Edmund will have to follow that up. Meanwhile, Mr Pullman is indignant that the very clever detective Khumalo isn’t on the case but Edmund holds his ground. The strange thing is that Marcia was found inside a locked house and there are no unaccounted for keys. She was also dead when the would be killer stabbed her. A mystery indeed.

There are several interesting characters, a healthy dose of humour, often arising from misinterpretation, misunderstanding and jumping to conclusions. There’s also the serious aspects of modern Zimbabwe’s troubled society and its past trauma. This is genuinely subversive and fun.

https://nbmagazine.co.uk/the-verdict-january-crime-fiction-round-up/

All Come to Dust is published in Zimbabwe by amaBooks, and in the UK by amaBooks and Parthian Books, where it is available through www.parthianbooks.com/products/all-come-to-dust .

Goodreads reviews of All Come to Dust

 

Crime fiction with a central detective character is a favourite staple on the bookshelves. All Come To Dust by Bryony Rheam takes the stereotypes, shakes them out of the box and upends expectations. The first few pages take the reader into an “other” place, familiar yet strange. The colours, smells and the noises of suburban Bulawayo are woven throughout this book, creating an atmosphere that leaves a lingering smell of hot concrete, bright bloom bursts and a coating of orange dust on the tongue. A post colonial world that has aged relics from Britain trying to cling on to an outdated way of life while the pulse and chaos of modern Zimbabwe strains to burst through underneath.

Chief Inspector Edmund Dube is a diligent police officer who works methodically with a razor sharp instinct for the truth. Polite, deferential and softly spoken, he’s a man who puts up with the broken typewriters, scuffed shoes and the down at heel environs of his shabby Bulawayo police station. He realises not only is he the wrong person for the job, he is in the wrong place at the wrong time. Forced to ask for a lift from a stranger because the only working police car is being used elsewhere, he is light years away from his cherished schoolboy reading book world of traditional English policing.

At first slightly comical and almost pathetic – we soon come to realise that Edmund Dube is a sharp observant operator.

He is no Adam Dalgleish, Morse or even Poirot but could stand shoulder to shoulder with those literary detective creations as he starts his crime solving. The novel flits between present day and Dube’s 1970s upbringing in a world that has slowly disappeared. A bright African schoolboy, Dube’s childhood memories provide clues to his personality and deliver an intriguing mystery story arc.

Victim Marcia Pullman is the typical suburban social climber, a bully and a snob. Her murder – behind the closed security gates of a house staffed with sullen servants and an obnoxious husband – sparks a classic detective whodunnit. Bryony Rheam deftly draws a colourful cast of believable characters that have flaws, secrets and many human failings.

Chief Inspector Dube has to battle against corruption, ingrained racism and class prejudice as he works his way to the book’s conclusion. Bryony Rheam has created a richly detailed, hugely enjoyable and satisfying crime novel, dense with clues, twists and turns. It’s no surprise that this book has already gained prestigious awards in her native country.

A murder mystery with an African aura that refreshingly skews traditional reference points for English language crime fiction.

Sue Lewis

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Bryony Rheam's well-crafted murder mystery takes a hard look at life in contemporary Zimbabwe. Much of the story takes place in a historically white suburb of Bulawayo. Several of the inhabitants are hard up after the runaway inflation, but those who have access to hard currency – in one way or another – are doing much better. The latter include Marcia Pullman and her husband who run a tour operation, but they clearly have many lucrative side interests.

Then Marcia is discovered dead in her home with a letter opener sticking out of her chest. Chief Inspector Edmund Dube goes to the scene, having wheedled a lift from a man at the police station who is arguing about a speeding fine. Dube realizes that there’s not enough blood and it’s clear that the victim was dead before she was stabbed. The pathologist, a friend of Marcia’s husband, agrees and says she died of natural causes. Nevertheless, the question of why she was stabbed remains. The crime is laid at the door of the recently dismissed gardener, but Edmund believes there's a lot more to it than that. However, the senior officers at the police station seem intent on thwarting his efforts to get to the bottom of the case.

Edmund identifies a cast of suspects: Marcia’s husband; the Pullmans’ maid and gardener; the peculiar neighbor; Janet Peters who was bullied by her, and has an invalid mother; a mysterious woman interested in Marcia's old records; and Craig Martin, who has publicly threatened her.

Superficially, the novel seems to follow the usual tropes of the detective story genre, but as the author delves into Edmund's past, the book's rich characterizations and subtle surprises remind one more of PD James than Agatha Christie. Nothing is as it seems.

My pick for the best African mystery of 2021.

Michael Stanley

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Marcia Pullman was preparing for her book group when she felt a headache coming on and decided to lie down. When Janet, a member of the group, arrives she finds Marcia in her bed with a letter opener protruding from her chest. The coroner determined that she was dead of natural causes before being stabbed, but why stab a corpse? Chief Inspector Edmund Dube takes the call reporting the death and arrives to investigate. Dube was influenced to become a policeman from the images of investigators in novels and movies, but he is soft spoken and overlooked by everyone at his station. Marcia’s husband has connections with the police and Dube is soon warned off. Determined to find answers, he continues to investigate on his own. The story builds slowly as Dube questions Janet, Marcia’s husband, her maid Dorcas, Craig Martin, a man who recently threatened her, and her neighbor Roland. Each time he reaches out to them he learns more of their connections and history with Marcia and realizes that she had a hold over each of them and they all hated her.

Set in a primarily white suburb in Zimbabwe, this is a contemporary mystery that deals with the faltering economy and racial relations in a post-colonial society. Bryony Rheam builds her story slowly until the final third of the book, which moves rapidly to the conclusion. In a Poirot-like confrontation, Dube gathers his suspects together and reveals their secrets and his conclusions with a truly surprising twist. All Come to Dust is a lengthy mystery that is beautifully written and well worth the time that it takes to follow Chief Inspector Dube’s quest for the truth.

Jean Kolinofsky

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A fabulous combination of eclectic Bulawayo characters with strong character development, vivid writing, and a great murder mystery to boot. 

Absolutely loved this.

Margie Rees