The Witch Doctor's Wife (2009)

Book Info

Author

Tamar Myers

Genre

Mystery & Thriller

Series

Amanda Brown

Rating

3.53 of 5 Votes: 1

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ISBN

0061727830 (ISBN13: 9780061727832)

Language

English

Publisher

William Morrow Paperbacks

Shops

Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble

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About book The Witch Doctor's Wife (2009)

I enjoyed this book, althought it isn't the type of book that I normally read (I missed the part that it was a mystery when I bought it). I enjoyed best the author's knowledge about the people of the Congo, the nastiness of colonialism. The characters were enjoyable, although not fully-developed and there were a few extraneous ones where I'm not sure why they were needed. The storyline was really a means to tell about life in colonial Belgian-Congo, not terribly strong in and of itself. Still, a good book, I feel that I learned something. I liked the characters and the story, but two things prevented me from giving it more than 2 stars. First off, the book switched perspectives too frequently for me - but that is just a personal preference. My other concern is that I felt it really sugar-coated the Belgian colonials. Perhaps things really had gotten better by the 1950's, but it was my understanding that Belgian colonial rule was the cruelest, most violent in Africa. The author makes brief references to this, but in general most people seem to be relatively tolerant and non-violent. Just didn't ring true with me.