You Will See Fire

The sensational true story of Kenyan missionary John Kaiser: A murdered priest. A covered-up crime. A fight for justice.

John Kaiser, paratrooper turned priest, was a major voice in opposition to the Kenyan dictator Daniel Moi. In 2000, while preparing to speak against the regime, he received a letter telling him Utaona Moto – You Will See Fire. Months later, he is found dead. The initial post-mortem concluded that Kaiser, a complicated man, committed suicide. But for a Roman Catholic this is unthinkable, and eventually the FBI was called in to carry out its own investigation.

But they too concluded that Kaiser killed himself, despite major discrepancies in the evidence. Several years later, with Moi’s hated regime having finally fallen, Kenyan lawyer Mbuthi Gatheni decided to finally get to the bottom of what actually happened. His investigation pointed to a potentially explosive cover-up by both the Kenyan government and the FBI. His long campaign resulted in a new and dramatic inquest.

In ‘You Will See Fire’, 2007 Pulitzer Prize finalist and part of the Pulitzer Prize winning team for 2011 Christopher Goffard tells the stories of John Kaiser and Mbuthi Gatheni – two very different characters whose lives become more closely interlinked as the mystery of Kaiser’s death is finally unravelled in a thrilling conclusion. This is a true story of murder, corruption, courage, and redemption.