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First in the series starring a South African police detective: “[A] picturesque backdrop, cast of authentic characters, and knotty story line” (Publishers Weekly). Shortlisted for the International Dagger Award and Winner of the University of Johannesburg Debut Prize Insp. Albertus Markus Beeslaar is a traumatized cop who has abandoned tough city policing and a broken relationship in Johannesburg for a backwater post on the edge of the Kalahari Desert. But his dream of rural peace is soon shattered by the repeated attacks of a brutally efficient crime syndicate, as he struggles to train and connect with rookie local cops Ghaap and Pyl, who resent his brusqueness and his old-school ways. ...
" Captain Albertus Beeslaar has had enough of the Kalahari. He is about to hand in his resignation, but before doing so he is sent into the heart of an ancient San community: an elder has died after being released from police custody and the San blame the police. The small town of Witdraai borders on the world-famous Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, where the last of the Kalahari Sani eke out a living. A violent attack on a German tourist has unsettled the whole town - a case that is rubbing up Beeslaar's new colleague, Colonel Koekoes Mentoor, the wrong way. She wants to turn her back on Witdraai and the bad memories the place holds for her. As the heat rises, all hell breaks loose: a policeman is murdered; deepseated corruption is threatening a major land restitution plan for the San; and a mysterious killer is prowling the red dunes. Amid all the controversy, Kytie Rooi, a cleaner at a luxury guesthouse in Upington and self-appointed protector of a strange street child, is fleeing into the deadly heat of the desert with her charge. In this world, places of safety are dangerously elusive."--back cover.
In one of Stellenbosch’s most affluent areas an apparent house break-in goes awry, leaving a millionaire property developer’s beautiful wife dead. Inspector Albertus Beeslaar, in town to visit a former colleague, is reluctantly drawn in to the investigation led by the formidable Captain Vuyokazi Qhubeka of the Stellenbosch saps. Soon this picturesque town with its historic white gables, world-famous wineries and big money begins to reveal its dark underbelly. Fifteen hundred kilometres to the north, Sergeant Johannes Ghaap is thrust into a drama of his own as he races to save a kidnapped woman and her child, who are being held captive in Soweto. Fate will steer him to The Fatha – a man capable of such evil that most consider him a mere urban legend ... Our Fathers is the translation of the Afrikaans bestseller Onse vaders, a novel that sees the return of Karin Brynard’s much-loved hero Beeslaar and establishes Brynard as one of the country’s finest writers of crime fiction.
It is 1939. Eva Delectorskaya is a beautiful 28-year-old Russian émigrée living in Paris. As war breaks out she is recruited for the British Secret Service by Lucas Romer, a mysterious Englishman, and under his tutelage she learns to become the perfect spy, to mask her emotions and trust no one, including those she loves most. Since the war, Eva has carefully rebuilt her life as a typically English wife and mother. But once a spy, always a spy. Now she must complete one final assignment, and this time Eva can't do it alone: she needs her daughter's help.
Nicholas van der Swart has always known he is different. Unable to live up to the expectations his family, his heritage and his culture have of him, he grows increasingly diffident and introverted. When, at the age of 19, he is conscripted into the South African army, he enters a world that is utterly at odds with his every sensibility. Here, he will face the scorn and violence of his tormenters, but will also find the strength to survive. Although the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa has gone a long way toward exposing and exorcising some of the atrocities committed in the name of Apartheid, very little has been revealed about the adversities faced by gays under the regime. Set in “Ward 22” during the Angola Bush War that raged from 1966 to 1989 in South-west Africa, Moffie transports the reader into the world of a young gay conscript with evocative realism. At turns heart wrenching and humorous, told with great sensitivity and infused with hope, Moffie is a long overdue account of a vital subject, place and time.
This book takes the reader on a delightful journey into Africa and into the world of a little girl called Tippi who tells her unforgettable story on her return from Africa to France at the age of ten. Tippi is no ordinary child. She believes that she has the gift of talking to animals and that they are like brothers to her. Her world is filled with characters like Leon the Chameleon, Abu the elephant whom she calls ‘my brother’, and leopards, snakes, baboons, lions and ostriches ... ‘I speak to them with my mind, or through my eyes, my heart or my soul, and I see that they understand and answer me.’ My Book of Africa contains the words of a little girl who has the gift of reaching out and touching the people and animals of Africa. It s beautifully illustrated with over 100 magical photographs taken by her parents, French filmmakers and photographers, Sylvie Robert and Alain Degré.
As a young boy growing up in Port Elizabeth in the 1960s and 1970s, Steven Robins was haunted by an old postcard-size photograph of three unknown women on a table in the dining room. Only later did he learn that the women were his father’s mother and sisters, photographed in Berlin in 1937, before they were killed in the Holocaust. Steven’s father, who had fled Nazi Germany before it was too late, never spoke about the fate of his family who remained there. Steven became obsessed with finding out what happened to the women, but had little to go on. In time he stumbled on official facts in museums in Washington DC and Berlin, and later he discovered over a hundred letters sent to his fath...
The way you parent, the clothes you buy, your relationships with your boss and your daughter, your attitude to money and sex, are, to an extraordinary extent, defined by the era into which you were born. Parents, the church, teachers and employers think they understand youngsters because they, too, were young once. But adults no longer live in the world that existed when they were teenagers. We may occupy the same space, home, classroom or office but we live in different worlds. And these worlds often collide. We've moved in one century from a 'built to last' to a 'throwaway' society. No wonder age differences are so vast. In this book you will discover your generation and those of the people who make up your life. Once you understand what makes them, and you, tick, the 'gen gap' begins to shrink. Fasten your seatbelt for a generational roller coaster ride - you may never think the same way again! In this book you'll understand why: your boss insists on endless meetings and conferences; your 20-something student doesn't want a 50-something computer teacher; you're in your 40s but still trying to prove yourself to Mom and Dad; your teacher should be learning from you.
The traumatized central character of J.M. Coetzee’s Disgrace is provocatively reimagined in this “surprising, subtle, and deeply challenging” novel (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Two years ago, Lucy Lurie was the victim of an act of sexual violence that devastated her life. Afterwards, she becomes obsessed with the author John Coetzee, whose acclaimed novel turned her brutal assault into a literary metaphor. Withdrawn and fearful of crowds, Lucy nonetheless makes occasional forays into the world of men in her search for Coetzee himself. She means to confront him. The Lucy in his novel, Disgrace, is passive and almost entirely lacking agency. Lucy means to right the record, for she is the lacuna that Coetzee left in his novel—the missing piece of the puzzle. Lucy plans to put herself back in the story, to assert her agency and identity. For Lucy Lurie will be no man’s lacuna. Lacuna is both a powerful feminist reply to the book considered to be Coetzee’s masterwork, and the moving story of one woman’s attempt to reclaim her identity after trauma. Winner of the Sala Novel Award Winner of the Humanities and Social Sciences Award for the Novel
Democracy in South Africa turns twenty on 27 April 2014. In A Rumour of Spring, Max du Preez investigates and analyses the progress and lack of progress the country has made during these twenty years. A Rumour of Spring looks at the legacies of Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki in an attempt to understand how we got here, and examines Jacob Zuma’s presidency to better understand where we are. In the context of blatant corruption, populism and tragedies such as the Marikana massacre, the book considers the current state of the ruling party and the opposition, and dissects the big issues currently afflicting our society, including the state of education, land reform, crime and policing, the judiciary, nationality and race. And then, with images of the Arab Spring fresh in our collective memory, it dares to look to the future and what it may hold. An honest and balanced account, A Rumour of Spring tackles the questions asked by ordinary South Africans every day: How are we really doing? What is really going on in our country? How should we understand what is happening here? And will it get any better?