SYNOPSIS:
THE GENERAL'S PROJECT
The president is dead. His son’s pretending he’s not. And the corpse? Well, that’s missing.
When the CIA sniffs out whispers that an African general—who also happens to be the president’s darling son—may have murdered dear old dad and stashed the body like last week’s leftovers, they send in their best bloodhound: Agent Shawn Wayles. He’s good at two things—digging up dirt and getting shot at in places the U.S. swears it’s not involved.
This time, Shawn’s not alone. He’s paired with an LGBTQ couple who have more secrets than the Vatican and fewer moral brakes.
Their mission? Retrieve the dead president’s body from the general’s paranoid, trigger-happy security team.
Because in this twisted power struggle, it’s not the living who rule—it’s the guy in the coffin. And whoever has the corpse... controls the country.
BOOK REVIEW
I don't spend time on plot summary, so please read the book synopsis above.
HALL WAYS HYBRID REVIEW: THE MISSING CORPSE by the talented Yasin Kakande is the
second book in The General’s Project series, but it works perfectly as a stand-alone.
I had no problem jumping in, but holy cow, did I need to hold on tight. THE
MISSING CORPSE is an intense and disturbing story that takes readers into the
darkest pits of corruption and parts of humanity. It’s relentless in blanketing
readers in the horrible realities of power-hungry, immoral people who have no
boundaries – it's much like watching a train wreck; readers will be spellbound.
“Dictatorship, it turns out, runs on favors. And blood. Mostly blood.”
Kudos to Kakande for providing a graphic content warning at
the beginning of THE MISSING CORPSE. He’s not kidding around in depicting the
ugliness that exists in the world, particularly in Uganda, “where the old and
new collided in vibrant symphony.” The author’s descriptions pop from the pages,
forcing visceral reactions: noses will wrinkle at the smells; eyes will tear from
the conditions; cheeks will burn from rage and shame. The juxtaposition of the modern
world against a less-developed one is striking. The author deftly jabs at the
systems that allow such extreme, brutal oppression “in places where democracy
was just another word for the promises men made before loading their guns.”
I did a hybrid reading of this book, alternating between the
paperback and the virtual-voice narration. When listening to virtual narration,
I’ve learned that you can tell quite a bit about the writing – not just syntax but also punctuation. A virtual narrator will pause as the writing instructs it, and
in THE MISSING CORPSE, it’s an easy listen because Kakande’s sentences are so
well-written. In the paperback, I didn’t find a single typo or misplaced comma,
and for that I am grateful. The author nails dialogue, internal thoughts, and
exposition. Well-done!
“…as they climbed the narrow, chipped staircase – an artery of old concrete curling up toward Uhuru Restaurant like a forgotten vein of the building.”
I have only two editorial gripes, which is amazing given I’m
*a tad* persnickety. The first is that much as I love figurative language, and even
as near perfect are Kakande’s similes, metaphors, and personifications, there
are just too many to really appreciate any one of them. To double-check my impression, I opened the
book to a random page, and I re-read an opening paragraph: it is three sentences
long and includes three similes and one metaphor. The next paragraph was five sentences, four containing figurative language. It's overkill. The second issue is regarding
the length of one chapter that doesn’t really do much to move the story forward and barely gives more insight into the characters.
It is nearly twice as long as the next longest chapter and more than double most
others. While it does graphically illustrate the horrific sex-trafficking
market, it could make the point in half the time, and truly, the entire chapter
could have been cut without consequence to the story. A good copy editor would
take a red pen to rectify both of these situations, which would take this very
good book to truly outstanding.
“Even if they are our people, how can they speak if they are dead or too terrified to talk?”
THE MISSING CORPSE is timely and underscores that political
corruption is not bound to any one government. One can’t help reading and
thinking about our current situation in the United States and the unsavory influences
our leaders are asserting (and attempting to assert) in other countries and within our own. There
are more parallels than this citizen is comfortable with, and more than once I
wondered if what I was reading was fact or fiction. Again, it’s a mark of great
writing when the author can make his reader uncomfortable and contemplative.
For readers seeking raw, action-packed, international political thrillers, THE MISSING CORPSE proves to be time well spent between its uncomfortable pages. It leaves us with much to ponder and scenes we’ll never forget. The preview of book three, THE PRESIDENT’S FUNERAL, is intriguing and hopefully provides a spectacular comeuppance readers are left craving after book two.
READ AN EXCERPT:
The General knew—like a rotting tooth you can’t stop tonguing—just how hard his old man had worked to hammer him into something resembling a real man, using boot camps, backdoor deals, and enough disappointment to fill a graveyard.
Before the president found Twitter—sorry, X—for him, he mostly just found disappointment. And not the subtle, quiet kind. No, this was loud, public, teeth-grinding failure. The kind that makes a father grip his whiskey glass hard enough to shatter it. The boy was dull. A wet match in a thunderstorm. The people ignored him like a pothole they’d grown used to swerving around.
The president, who fancied himself a blend of warlord and wise grandfather, had done all the right things—by dictator standards. He’d oiled the machinery, laid the bricks. He'd shipped the lad off to Sandhurst, the British womb for future coup-makers and ceremonial dictators. But the academy spat him out like a bad oyster after just one year. Reason? "Intellectual capacity insufficient for command responsibilities." That's British for “the boy was dumb as soup.”
Panic set in. The president, no stranger to coups or cover-ups, scrambled for another boot camp that would accept his undercooked progeny. And God bless Africa—it never disappoints. Egypt, under old mummy Hosni Mubarak, opened its arms. The president’s warning was clear as day and sharp as a bayonet: “If you fail here, don’t ever mention my name again.” The boy emerged months later with a piece of paper that said he could command a battalion. No one bothered to ask if it was his own handwriting.
Still not satisfied, Daddy rang his buddies in Langley. Mr. Taylor—CIA spook with a neck like a tree stump—hooked him up with a slot at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. That’s where the U.S. trained its foreign military friends—the ones that smiled for cameras by day and broke skulls by night. The General graduated. Barely. His grades so low they had to be excavated.
Back home, the president, desperate to turn the boy into something—anything—decided to mold him into a public figure. He hired speech coaches, media whisperers, ex-BBC anchors, even a former Miss Uganda who once read the weather on WBS Television. Still, every time the General opened his mouth in public, it was a horror show. His hands trembled like a leaf in a blender. He couldn’t pronounce words. Once, he called “sovereignty” soup-ver-nanny and the room went so silent you could hear careers dying.
But then came the miracle: Twitter. Well, X. Rebranded like a shady funeral home. The president's advisors—witchdoctors in suits—pitched a bold idea: give the boy a Twitter account. Hire a comedian ghostwriter. Make him sound dangerous. Sexy. Unhinged. Like Idi Amin with a smartphone.
Enter the ghostwriter—a washed-up tabloid journalist who once faked an alien sighting in Karamoja and got sued by a Catholic bishop. The guy was perfect. He knew how to stir the pot with one tweet and have the country boiling by lunch.
The General gave him ideas—half-mumbled thoughts between sips of imported whiskey—and the ghostwriter turned them into gold. Tweets like: Kenya has two weeks left. Consider this your final warning. #WeMarchAtDawn
The country gasped. The president “fired” the General. He even sent an apology to Kenya. A public scandal. Oh no, Daddy can’t control his baby boy! The media gobbled it up like pigs at a buffet.
But behind the curtain, the ghostwriter kept churning out wild, headline-drenched tweets. The General was now lusting after Beyoncé and Ayra Starr like a horny war god in fatigues. He made bizarre threats about airstrikes on Tanzanian Bongo Flava concerts. People were horrified. People were entertained.
***
Excerpt from chapter 24 of The Missing Corpse by Yasin Kakande. Copyright 2025 by Yasin Kakande. Reproduced with permission from Yasin Kakande. All rights reserved.
AUTHOR BIO:
Yasin Kakande is an international journalist, TED Global Fellow, and author of several critically praised nonfiction books, including Why We Are Coming and Slave States, which offer fresh perspectives on immigration and geopolitics. His journalism career includes contributions to outlets such as The New York Times, Thomson Reuters, Al Jazeera, The National, and The Boston Globe. Yasin holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College and resides outside Boston.
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