A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn

In 1952, Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper is called from Johannesburg to a crime scene near the small town of Jacob's Rest. The head of the local police force, Captain Pretorius, has been murdered. The Captain's five sons, being from a pure Afrikaner family, are out for blood and would never accept that a white person could be the culprit. In addition, under apartheid, the town of Jacob's Rest has developed a culture of fear, division, and violence among its people. Emmanuel also faces personal obstacles --he is an outsider (an Englishman) and hears voices. Then the police's elite (and corrupt) Security Branch moves in to take over the case and Emmanuel decides to continue investigating in secret. He knows he must find the Captain's killer before they do. A Beautiful Place to Die is a leisurely-paced mystery with full descriptions of the South African landscape and life in a small town under apartheid for whites, coloreds, and blacks. Nunn's depictions of secondary characters like Constable Samuel Shabalala, a Zulu, are also memorable.