Death in the Rainy Season

Death in the Rainy Season follows the experiences of a young American woman assigned to a post at the U.S. Embassy in 1984 Zaire and her passionate love affair with a Belgian businessman, born and brought up in Zaire and deeply committed to the country. A sensuously rendered sense of place firmly roots the novel in the complexities of Africa and brings to life the dissolute community of Westerners in Third World countries where easy living and dangerous intrigue blend together in a deceptive haze. The expatriates live in a privileged world where they drink, flirt, and gossip about who is sleeping with whom, but throughout all of this petty activity important business is getting done. Information is being gathered. Big power plays are being made. As a plot to overthrow the dictator Mobutu gains momentum, power, corruption, and sexual jealousy shatter the idyllic love affair between the two idealistic protagonists.

Mary Martin Devlin

For several years in the eighties, Mary Martin Devlin lived in Kinshasa, Zaire, and came to know the breathtaking beauty of the country, along with its squalor and misery, the chronic political maneuvering, the abusive power of corporations like big oil, and, of course, the expatriate life. She draws on these experiences to bring to life the dissolute community of Westerners in Third World countries where easy living and dangerous intrigue blend together in a deceptive haze.

Devlin is the author of Precious Pawn (Cuidono, 2014). She has translated and collaborated on books regarding the African AIDS epidemic and the politics of the Congo, including Chief of Station, Congo, which chronicles her husband's experiences in Cold War-era Africa. Her story "The Resting Wall" was short-listed for the O. Henry Prize in 2003. She divides her time between Atlanta, Georgia, and the south of France.