Silent Valley

Please note: Silent Valley has also been published under the alternate title Blessed Are the Dead.

A remote town. A girl of rare and exquisite beauty. A murder that silences a whole community.

The body of a 17-year-old girl has been found covered in wildflowers on a hillside in the Drakensberg Mountains, near Durban. She is the daughter of a Zulu chief, destined to fetch a high bride price. Was Amahle as innocent as her family claims, or is her murder a sign that she lived a secret life?

Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Cooper is sent to investigate. He must enter the guarded worlds of a traditional Zulu clan and a white farming community to gather up the clues Amahle left behind and bring her murderer to justice. But the silence in the valley is deafening, and it seems that everyone - from the uncooperative local police officer, to the white farm boy who seems obsessed with the dead girl - has something to hide.

With no cause of death and no motive, Cooper's investigation is blocked at each turn. Can he tough it out, or will the small-town politics that stir up his feelings about the past be more than he can bear?

In this pause-resisting tale of murder and mystery, Nunn entangles us in a rich and complex web of witchcraft, tribalism, taboo relationships...and plain old-fashioned greed.