Rob Marsh

Love the Cat by Rob Marsh
Illustrated very colorful children's book about Sarah and her cat, Love.
The cat is crazy and gets out of the house when the door is opened, uh oh.
He heads right to a neighbor's house that does not like cats, but what happens next nobody expects. Happy to learn this is a teaching book to young children.
Glad there was a misunderstanding between them and they got it worked out. Visit the author's website for more books.
I received this book from Library Thing via the member giveaway in exchange for my honest review.… (mehr)

Rob Marsh takes us on an enthralling adventure as he explores Africa, the ‘strange events, the extraordinary people and the astonishing cultures’, in this excellently designed book which serves both as a reference work and a source of pure reading pleasure.

Over 200 pages of alphabetically arranged entries cover Africa from Egypt to South Africa, and topics range from crop circles [Credo Mutwa claims they have been endemic to this continent for over 4000 years] to Hatshepsut, the female pharaoh.

Unfortunately, the book contains no bibliography and it would have been improved by a few illustrations but, criticisms aside, Africa is fascinating and an asset to any library.… (mehr)

Rob Marsh has done his adopted country an enormous favour not only by exposing certain past crimes but also by presenting us with a new and perplexing anti-hero in the form of Captain Russell Kemp, a man whose conscience has sabotaged not only a once-promising career but his personal life as well.

Beasts of Prey is set in 1988, only a few years before the dismantling of apartheid but while tensions were at their height: South Africa was in a state of emergency, the Nats saw Reds under every bed, and society was racially, politically and ideologically polarised.

Namibia was still South West Africa, and our troops were fighting wars on far-away borders, playing God in various Southern African states by supplying arms and aid to factions hostile to any government the Apartheid regime saw as anti-capitalist.

A member of the Special Branch, Russell married the beautiful Samantha and when his adored daughter Nicky was born it seemed as though his life was perfect. But soon the stresses and strains of his job made themselves apparent: even when he moved to the Police force CID he found the ethical ambiguity of South African political practicalities stifling.

At the start of the book, Captain Kemp is exiled to Phalaborwa, his wife has divorced him, he’s battling an addiction to pethidine and his long-estranged daughter Nicky, after struggling with drug problems and poor marks at University, has disappeared.

An apparent suicide – by a staffer from the Phalaborwa military base – at Kruger Park ceases to be routine when Kemp’s assumptions are challenged by a journalist, who claims it is murder.

Once an excellent investigator, Russell now takes the line of least resistance and, despite the reporter’s conviction, might have accepted the shooting as self-inflicted were it not for a visit by the arrogant and sinister Colonel de Lange of Military Intelligence, who is insistent that the late Lieutenant Coetzee killed himself.

It’s not exactly a spoiler to reveal that Kemp becomes ‘romantically involved’ with the reporter Erin, and they discover a MI cover-up involving many murders, the whole-sale smuggling of rhino horn, ivory and forbidden game from Angola, plus corruption reaching to the top.

What would be an exciting thriller with memorable, sympathetic although deeply fallible characters takes on a deeper meaning when one considers that this book, although fiction, is totally based on fact – vide Justice Kumleben’s report of 1996, and the 1988 van Note statement to the US Congress, not to mention all the tales told by brothers, sons and boyfriends about gunning down herds of game whilst in the military….

The author’s note at the end provides references, facts and figures that make heart-breaking and disturbing reading for anyone interested in conservation or who believed South Africa could ever be trusted when it came to animal rights or environmental issues.

However, even was the book fantasy – and one wishes it were – it is an absorbing read. This is Rob Marsh’s second crime novel and he is working on a third: ‘eager anticipation’ is the cliché that springs to mind!… (mehr)