In 1935, in the Belgian Congo, two young boys of the Bapende tribe participate in the ancient tradition of cannibalism. Twins, one of them should have been killed just after birth, but their father convinced the tribe that one of the babies has special powers and stole the leopard's spots, thus being a powerful and good spirit that should remain with the tribe. In alternating chapters, we follow one of the twins as he is kidnapped from his tribe, has a series of unfortunate experiences, and eventually ends up a young man living in Belle Vue.
The alternating story occurs in 1958, in the Belgian Congo town of Belle Vue, where an eclectic group of European and African characters have lives that intertwine in fascinating ways. I wanted to list all the spunky and revolting and crazy and wise characters, but there are too many to describe in this short space. Instead I will praise the author's imagination and creative skills in her development of a wonderful cast. Much of the conversation between the whites and the blacks involve the whites trying to convert the blacks to Christianity with arguments that, in view of the natives' own traditions and wisdom, are nonsensical: it's a sin to eat the meat of a man, but it's a requirement to eat the body of Christ on a regular basis.
The chapters switch between the earlier time period and the later, until the 1935 story progresses into the 1958 story, where the plots and characters neatly merge. A murder occurs and is solved, but this novel is less a murder mystery than a collage of quirky characters, dealing with crazy events, in a jungle world brought beautifully alive by Tamar Myers. ( )

These are my thoughts on an uncorrected proof I received via Goodreads giveaway...

Why is it so flippin' hard to write a decent "review" of something I enjoyed reading so much? Let's see. I shall start with...I really liked this book. The characters came alive on the page. [Cripple, I love you.] It had a strong sense of place. [The Belgian Congo of 1958, with snatches of 1935 sprinkled throughout.] More please? ( )

Didn't finish this book. Just could not get into the writing - found the tone to be rather stiff and too biblical sounding for my tastes. Just didn't click with the story overall, so I couldn't continue with it. ( )

I have read and really enjoyed Tamar Myers' Den of Antiquity and Pennsylvania Dutch mysteries, so I was very excited to win this book from Library Things early reviewers. This is a very interesting book. Myers was raised in the Belgian Congo and has used that time to influence these stories of the Belgian Congo. The book is good but has some drawbacks.
This book is sent in two different times: one in the 1930's Belgian Congo with a tribe who use cannibalism as part of their rituals to bring strength and healing to their tribe and late 1950's Belgian Congo when Protestant and Catholic missionaries compete with each other to convert the natives to their respective religions. At the same time, a mystery starts in the late 50s that has its origins in the earlier time. Flashbacks to the earlier time explain some of the mystery though it is not fully explained til the end of the book.
There are several characters with not pleasant sides to their personalities and they are all European characters and they are drawn slightly one dimensionally--though some of this nastiness is at time funny especially Madame Cabochon, who is the village floozy and at times very funny because she doesn't understand things as well as she thinks. The Catholic priests are not represented well and are represented very stereotypically.
The main native characters Cripple and her husband Their Death and the lone American character, Amanda Brown, are all smarter and more charitable to each other. They are definitely drawn with more care and probably more truth. In fact, Cripple is my favorite character in the book and I would read a book that was written with more of her point of view.
The book has some drawbacks--it is probably a bit too long, the point of view of most of the European characters are a bit heavy handed and the mystery is drawn out a bit much. This is not a mystery as much a story of Africa with a slight mystery and maybe that is why my enjoyment was not as much as I hoped. ( )

There were things I liked and things I didn't like about this book. One of the things I loved is the great cast of characters. For them I would recommend reading this book. Also, I liked the time and setting which added tension to the story as the Belgian Congo was getting ready for major change.

What I found a little off-putting was the Biblical style of writing. For instance, I found one paragraph where sentences started as followed:
"So it was that..."
"And it came to pass that..."
"For it is a well-known fact that..."

This was the third of a series but I did not feel like I had been dropped into the middle of something. I became acquainted with everyone as the book went along.

The story starts with an ingenious plan to allow a father to keep both of his twin sons in a primitive culture where twin children are harder to support so a test is required to see which child will survive. The story jumps ahead to when the twins are grown and are in the middle of a major national upheaval.

I recommend this book if you are looking for a very different set of people in an unusual setting. ( )