Aug 26, 2010
1952 South Africa is the setting for this mystery that brings the first years of apartheid to life. An Afrikaner police Captain has been found shot dead and left face down in a river near his hometown of Jacob’s Rest. Detective Emmanuel Cooper is dispatched from Johannesburg to solve the case. He is assisted by “the old Jew” and a black constable, a fact that wins Cooper no favor with the Afrikaner “Special Branch” who show up to take over the investigation and employ somewhat less than ethical tactics. The dead captain has a past that his three sons know nothing about – and they want to keep it that way. This book is full of incidents of racial and sexual discrimination and is sometimes uncomfortable to read.