Elephants' Graveyard

After her husband left her for another woman, American Jazz Jasper launched a safari outfitters business in Kenya that turned up hyenas, lions and corpses on its maiden trip, the subject of McQuillan's first novel ( Deadly Safari ). With tourism now quashed by bad press and a stalling economy, she is persuaded by her friend Mikki to investigate the shooting death of her lover, Emmett Laird, a rich conservationist whose Save the Elephants Foundation opposes the lucrative illegal ivory trade. Suspects include Laird's disdainful wife and her boyfriend; a field biologist and her cantankerous husband; and Laird's wastrel son and radical-nationalist daughter. McQuillan's cast comments intriguingly, and often amusingly, on African culture as she conjures evocative scenes of dusty bush heat, squealing elephants, barking lions and the wilder urban life of Majengo, a treacherous, teeming slum where Jazz nearly vanishes in pursuit of a juicy clue. Sadly, stiff dialogue and Jazz's boring romantic seesaw between her remarkably selfish journalist boyfriend and smooth-talking Omondi, her pal on the police force, adds little spice to the game. A swift twist in the final pages can't quite redeem the perilous but clunky finale. (Apr.)