Liu, Marjorie M. - The Last Twilight
Doctor Rikki Kinn is treating what looks like an outbreak of Ebola in the Congo, but she soon gets tangled up in something much bigger. Enter Amiri the cheetah shapeshifter from Dirk & Steele, who is returning to Africa for the first time since being kidnapped by the Consortium.
I am not even going to attempt further plot explanation, as the larger this series gets, the more the plot starts sounding like something straight out of manga. This is, by the way, a plus.
I continue to like Liu's characters, and I was very glad to get a) an acknowledgement that Africa actually consists of many countries and Amiri being Kenyan != Amiri knowing everything about Africa ever and b) a black man as a non-African-American-marketed romance novel hero! I particularly like Amiri's kindness; he reminds me a lot of Artur. Rikki is also damaged and hurt, like many of Liu's heroines.
Also, I cheered because Eddie shows up again! He is still "ma'am"-ing people and Rikki ruffles his hair a lot, which I approve of. He is so cute.
On the downside, this book made me very, very uncomfortable, particularly because Rikki is white. In general, I do wish Liu would write more POC/POC relationships; most of them have been POC/white (including the parentage of most of the multiracial people). I was especially bugged in this book when Amiri and Rikki run across a group of women living together, and the woman in charge basically attempts to imprison and/or sell out Amiri and Rikki. There's also Amiri's past, which includes a dead Kenyan lover. And it was just the absence of black women and the presence of a white one, along with all the election rhetoric and the very racialized imagery of a black man and a white woman together.
I do realize all this is specifically USian while the story is set in the Congo, but on the other hand, Liu is writing about a US-based detective agency and her books are best-sellers here. So even if Amiri is not American, her audience is.
I also wanted to see more than the deadly diseases, violence and death of Africa. I realize this is a thriller-cum-romance and that nasty things have happened in all the foreign locales, but a) the nasty things in other foreign locales also makes me uncomfortable and b) I don't know. I am just tired of images of Africa that are "Death! Death! Danger! Death!"
Sooooo... I am not sure what the solution would be, and I wasn't throwing the book against a wall or pissed off. But I was deeply uncomfortable.
I am not even going to attempt further plot explanation, as the larger this series gets, the more the plot starts sounding like something straight out of manga. This is, by the way, a plus.
I continue to like Liu's characters, and I was very glad to get a) an acknowledgement that Africa actually consists of many countries and Amiri being Kenyan != Amiri knowing everything about Africa ever and b) a black man as a non-African-American-marketed romance novel hero! I particularly like Amiri's kindness; he reminds me a lot of Artur. Rikki is also damaged and hurt, like many of Liu's heroines.
Also, I cheered because Eddie shows up again! He is still "ma'am"-ing people and Rikki ruffles his hair a lot, which I approve of. He is so cute.
On the downside, this book made me very, very uncomfortable, particularly because Rikki is white. In general, I do wish Liu would write more POC/POC relationships; most of them have been POC/white (including the parentage of most of the multiracial people). I was especially bugged in this book when Amiri and Rikki run across a group of women living together, and the woman in charge basically attempts to imprison and/or sell out Amiri and Rikki. There's also Amiri's past, which includes a dead Kenyan lover. And it was just the absence of black women and the presence of a white one, along with all the election rhetoric and the very racialized imagery of a black man and a white woman together.
I do realize all this is specifically USian while the story is set in the Congo, but on the other hand, Liu is writing about a US-based detective agency and her books are best-sellers here. So even if Amiri is not American, her audience is.
I also wanted to see more than the deadly diseases, violence and death of Africa. I realize this is a thriller-cum-romance and that nasty things have happened in all the foreign locales, but a) the nasty things in other foreign locales also makes me uncomfortable and b) I don't know. I am just tired of images of Africa that are "Death! Death! Danger! Death!"
Sooooo... I am not sure what the solution would be, and I wasn't throwing the book against a wall or pissed off. But I was deeply uncomfortable.