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Michael Stanley

Biography

Michael Stanley

Michael Stanley is the writing team of Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip.

Both are retired professors who have worked in academia and business. Sears is a mathematician, specializing in geological remote sensing. Trollip is an educational psychologist, specializing in the application of computers to teaching and learning, and a pilot. They were both born in South Africa.

They have been on a number of flying safaris to Botswana and Zimbabwe, where it was always exciting to buzz a dirt airstrip to shoo the elephants off. They have had many adventures on these trips, including tracking lions at night, fighting bush fires on the Savuti plains in northern Botswana, being charged by an elephant, and having their plane’s door pop open over the Kalahari, scattering navigation maps over the desert. These trips have fed their love both for the bush, and for Botswana.

It was on one of these trips that the idea surfaced for a novel set in Botswana.

Michael Stanley

Books by Michael Stanley

by Michael Stanley - Fiction, Mystery

David “Kubu” Bengu's keen mind and famous persistence have seen him rise in the Botswana Criminal Investigation Department. But how did he get his start? His resentful new colleagues are suspicious of a detective who has entered the CID straight from university, skipping the usual beat cop phase. Shortly after he joins the CID, the richest diamond mine in the world is robbed of 100,000 carats of diamonds in transit. Police immediately suspect an inside job, but there is no evidence of who it could be. When the robbers are killed execution-style in South Africa and the diamonds are still missing, suspicion focuses on a witch doctor and his son. Does "Kubu" have the skill and the integrity to engineer an international trap and catch those responsible?

by Michael Stanley - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Investigative journalist Crystal Nguyen realizes that her close friend, Michael Davidson, has disappeared while researching a story on rhino poaching and rhino-horn smuggling in Africa. Fearing the worst, she wrangles her own assignment on the continent. Within a week in Africa, she's been hunting poachers, hunted by their bosses and questioned in connection with a murder --- and there's still no sign of Michael. Crystal is committed to preventing a major plot to secure a huge number of horns, but exposing the financial underworld supporting the rhino-horn market is only half the battle. Equally important is convincing South African authorities to take action before it's too late --- for the rhinos, and for Crystal.

by Michael Stanley - Fiction, Mystery

A Bushman is discovered dead near the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in Africa. Although the man looks old enough to have died of natural causes, the police suspect foul play, and the body is sent to Gaborone for an autopsy. Pathologist Ian MacGregor confirms the cause of death as a broken neck, but is greatly puzzled by the man’s physiology. Although he’s obviously very old, his internal organs look remarkably young. He calls in Assistant Superintendent David “Kubu” Bengu. When the Bushman’s corpse is stolen from the morgue, suddenly the case takes on a new dimension.

by Michael Stanley - Fiction, Mystery

Faced with the violent death of his own father, Assistant Superintendent David “Kubu” Bengu, the smartest detective in the Botswana police, is baffled. Who would kill such a frail old man? Kubu's frustration grows as his boss, Director Mabaku, bans him from being involved in the investigation. The picture becomes even murkier with the apparent suicide of a government official. Are Chinese mine-owners involved? And what role does the US Embassy have to play?

by Michael Stanley - Fiction, Mystery

When young girls start to go missing, Samantha Khama, a new detective on the Botswana police force, suspects that muti, a traditional African medicine, is the reason. She and Detective David “Kubu” Bengu race to stop a serial killer, all as the father of one of the victims threatens to take matters into his own hands.

by Michael Stanley - Fiction, Mystery

In this third installment of the Detective Kubu mystery series, members of an ancient nomadic tribe are fingered in the murder of a ranger in modern-day Botswana.