Joanne Hichens on Murder is Everywhere: A Tale of Three Cities

 Joanne Hichens recently wrote about her travels abroad on Michael Sears’ Murder is Everywhere website.

DIVINE JUSTICE is Joanne’s third novel, following OUT TO SCORE (2006), co-authored with Mike Nicol and published in the USA as CAPE GREED, and STAINED (2009), published  in the UK and France. She edited the first anthology of South African  crime-fiction short stories, BAD COMPANY (2008) (Kubu makes an appearance), and  THE BED BOOK OF SHORT STORIES (2010), both of which include her own work. She  lives in Cape Town, but has recently been far to the north-east from home.  Here she shares her feelings about the difference and similarity of cities.

Featuring the inimitable sleuth Rae Valentine, the setting of my new novel  DIVINE JUSTICE is Cape Town at the toe of the African Continent. Voted Top Destination for Tourists by tripadvisor, Rae describes the harbour city, with Table Mountain as spectacular backdrop, as “a mix of sophistication and in-your-face Africa, a cross between London and Lagos, New York and Nairobi”. Indeed it’s a mix of first and third-world, of varying creeds and cultures, where wealth and glamour sit in stark contrast to poverty and struggle. It’s the perfect environment to forment craziness.

Here, the dream mansion that any Hollywood star would drool over, sits a five minute drive from shantytowns where shacks are constructed of cardboard and plastic. Remember that great sci-fi flick, District Nine? Well, no movie set was created. The impoverished squalor was a pukka South African the township.

As for Hong Kong, a city I recently visited for research, I reckon it’s an equally appealing setting for sci-fi as high density living sees apartment buildings touch the heavens. Not even my photos can capture the sense of the unreal. Demands for living space on this small section of land has meant building up, up, up. Fat fingers of concrete stretch up and disappear into a misty sky.

Book details

• Divine Justice by Joanne Hichens
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  EAN: 9780987005809
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