The Keepers of the King's Peace

In the sweltering territories of the Belgian Congo, Commissioner Sanders maintains a precarious peace through equal parts diplomacy and sheer nerve. His days are spent navigating tribal politics, colonial bureaucracy, and the occasional supernatural disturbance, because in these lands, the line between medicine and miracle, between ju-ju and justice, remains delightfully unclear. When a woman named M'lama begins performing impossible cures in an Isango village, Sanders dispatches his most unreliable operative: Lieutenant 'Bones' Tibbetts, a man whose incompetence is matched only by his enthusiasm. What follows is a riotous collision of the absurd and the dangerous, with Bones stumbling into yet another crisis, Bosambo the magnificent Ochori king watching with amused detachment, and the supernatural lurking just beneath the surface of everyday colonial life. Wallace's novel is a magnificent piece of period adventure pulp, the real magic isn't in M'lama's miracles, but in the glorious collision between British officialdom and African ingenuity, with Bones serving as the perfect catalyst for chaos.