If you’re looking for looking for an intelligent blend of history, romance, and intrigue, The Clouds Beneath the Sun should be at the top of your reading list. The San Antonio Express-News just raved that it’s “one of 2010’s best novels so far.” Written under the nom de plume Mackenzie Ford, the book was authored by Peter Watson, a widely published historian with a background in archaeological research at Cambridge University. The story is set in Kenya in 1961, where Cambridge graduate Natalie Nelson has joined a dig in progress. When a murder occurs at the camp, Nelson is the only witness and “she finds herself in a vise of political and racial pressure over the following weeks as the murder trial approaches and Kenya nears independence from Britain.”

“A fascinating, morally ambiguous novel that juxtaposes the ambitions of the scientific community of outsiders against the sensitivities of the native cultures whose riches they unearth . . . Cinematic descriptions of the land and its people . . . Ripe for sophisticated book groups.”
-Library Journal, starred review