Book description
Detective Harry Mason has rejoined the South African Police Service
after a two-year leave of absence, and moved over to the specialised
Serious and Violent Crimes unit, headed by the tough and fiery veteran
commander Superintendent Carl ‘Blackie’ Swarts. Soon afterwards, Harry
is assigned to investigate the slaying of a minor politician and his
family, in a township west of Johannesburg. The case, at first seemingly
unsolvable, is abruptly saved by an enigmatic grassroots anarchist whom
Harry befriended during the apartheid riots of the ’80s, and soon the
SVC is hot on the heels of one of the country’s most secretive and
violent vigilante groups, known as ‘The Guardians’, headed up by two
brothers whose brutality is legendary amongst the poor inhabitants of
Johannesburg’s squatter camps.
As the investigation slices away at the layers of secrecy surrounding
this group, other secrets surface - truths that ultimately pose a threat
to Harry’s unit, and to the city at large. When Harry is abruptly gunned
down by unseen assassins during a dawn raid on a remote village, and a
bomb is detonated in the judicial heartland of Johannesburg, his former
police partner and long-time friend, Detective Jacob Tshabalala, is
forced to take matters into his own hands, and expose a splinter faction
of vigilantes operating within the police service itself - a faction
whose connections stretch all the way into parliament itself. Richard
Kunzmann is a native South African who majored in criminology. While
working as bookseller in London, he commenced writing his first novel
Bloody Harvests
(shortlisted for the Crime Writers Association ‘John Creasey Award for
Best First Crime Novel’), which was followed by Salamander Cotton
.
