Gallows Hill is the fourth in the Clare Hart series which has made Margie Orford one of this country’s most successful crime novelists. It follows the life of her protagonist Dr Clare Hart, who is an investigative profiler and works closely with the police force on murders, especially those involving women and children. Her work has brought her into proximity with some of the worst specimens of humanity, as well as some of the best. So much so that she and one of the most admired captains in the police force, Riedwaan Faizal, have become lovers. In the previous novels they worked on many horrific cases together and it was inevitable that each fell in love with someone who understands the brutal nature of their work.
When Gallows Hill begins, Clare and Riedwaan are virtually living together, their relationship one of the few positives in their harassed lives. The inciting incident of the plot kicks off with the death of a worn-out “bergie” woman at a construction site. Her death might have gone without mention if it weren’t for the fact that her loyal dog digs up a bone at the scene of her lonely demise. It’s a human bone, one of hundreds covered up in an illegal burial ground.
Is die lewe ’n onvoorspelbare reis oor ’n hindernisbaan van opeenvolgende toevallighede of bepaal die noodlot die gebeure wat ons tref?
Die hoofkarakter in die debuutroman deur Terry Westby-Nunn glo in laasgenoemde en in haar hoofkarakter, die arme Alice, se geval stuur die noodlot haar skynbaar in die een ongeluk ná die ander.
Phillippa Yaa de Villiers is a talented poet, writer and performer and her volume of poetry is a delicious word treat.
I envy the ability to capture vivid images in just a few words as evidenced by Phillippa Yaa de Villiers in this book of poetry.
The Everyday Wife is a look inside the life of a woman as she relates to those around her. She makes herself frighteningly vulnerable and very, very real and there can be few people who do not respond positively to this honest and clear inward look.
Mens vra jou soms af hoe maklik of moeilik ‘n skrywer dit vir sy lesers moet maak. Watter soort toegewings is geregverdig, watter soort kortpaaie moet vermy word? Oorskat die skrywer sy leserspubliek, of onderskat hy hulle intelligensie?
Wanneer die voltooide produk in jou hande lê, kan jy al lesende agterkom wat die skrywer se uitgangspunt is. Christopher Hope aanvaar dat sy lesers baie intelligent is. Hulle sal die roman se verradderlike boustene omkeer en terugpak, hul leesproses synde die moeisame tog van ‘n bou-inspekteur wat heeltemal seker wil maak dat alles op vaste aarde staan, seker te maak dat daar nie iewers onder ‘n steen of fondament makeer wat uiteindelik “verraad” gaan pleeg teenoor die takelwerk daarbo nie.
Until a few weeks ago I had never heard of Lesley Lokko, probably because I seldom venture into the realm of chick lit. However, I was pleasantly surprised. In A Private Affair, Lokko introduces us to four women, each of whom is dealing with difficult pasts, fraught relationships and insecurities.
There is Meagan, the teenage runaway, who flees her abusive home, only to work her way off the streets and into the arms of Tom, a young army officer, about to be stationed abroad.
Abbey, groomed since childhood to be the perfect wife and mother, putting everyone else before her own dreams and desires, is harbouring a dark secret that threatens to tear her ordered life apart.
HAVING sworn I would no longer read crime fiction written by non-South Africans — why read crime stories set in other countries when ours abounds with them? — I snapped up Chris Marnewick’s A Sailor’s Honour. I was not disappointed.
Baie van my boekvriende hou niks van kortverhale nie – te veel beginne; te veel slotte.
Dis soos om in spitsverkeer te bestuur, meen van hulle.
Ek gee toe dat die kortverhale – en laat mens dit maar sê, gedigte – in bloemlesings soms nie lekker vloei nie. Maar dit is beslis nie waar van die versameling verhale in Donker plekke; met François Bloemhof as samesteller en redakteur nie.
From Zeerust to Amsterdam, The Big Stick recreates the bitter-sweetness of Giovanni’s Room in an era of George Michael haircuts and crack cocaine. James Baldwin’s masterwork of gay literature played out in Paris, capital of fifties decadence and corruption; De Nooy relocates to Holland in the late eighties. Again we accompany a young man on a journey of self-discovery, again experience the polar magnetisms of yearning and censure. But The Big Stick has a richly experimental feel that delivers far beyond the slender promise of its page-count. Disguised as yet another stab at crime fiction, the narrative soon deviates into multiple voices, times and places, and before long the burden of life robs the “murder mystery” of all its tyrannical urgency.
Narrated by the elusive JR Deo, a character link with De Nooy’s debut, The Big Stick follows two travellers: mother and son, South African born, Europe-bound. “Princess” is a naif, incongruous in his khaki anorak and exaggerated Afrikaner lisp. In no time he becomes the darling of Reguliersdwarsstraat (“one long, paved catwalk, where every glance caught an image lovingly clipped from a glossy magazine”). The same accent, on the other hand, has less charm on the tongue of Alma, his mother, who comes to Amsterdam in search of understanding, forgiveness, finality: her son’s body in a casket. Alma is at once a figure of empathy and a target for well-deserved hatred. Her and her community’s tragic misunderstanding of her son’s condition”, for which the only cure is exile, is the theme that anchors the novel. Perhaps her arrival in Amsterdam, her wanderings in the footsteps of her estranged son, grant her the means to overcome her prejudices, but De Nooy’s craft strives to avoid moral simplicity. Unflinching, he presents bare-faced, unapologetic racism (Alma’s metaphor for her son’s “polished ebony” lover, Thierry, is that of a dog “walking round the house on its back legs”) and homophobia; there is no sudden revelation, only a gradual unfolding of the spirit.
For some readers, the dizzying switches in tone – now earthy, now elegiac – tense and address may prove distracting, with a special mention for the second-person intimacy of JR Deo’s narration (“You dragged your big brown suitcase”, “You were thirsty”). However, these instalments swiftly become the hook in your palate, irresistible. Further, the story brims over with laughter. Two homoerotic donkeys star in a Herman Charles Bosman-esque short story, and Alma and son’s grammar (“I beg yours?”) is rendered with exquisite tenderness. In a brief interview with Russell Clarke at the close of the book, De Nooy quotes one of his own characters: “If we didn’t laugh so much, we’d spend the whole day crying.” Excessively readable, profoundly sexual: there is a scene in a curtained-off darkroom that would give all the tannies in Zeerust a cadenza. In a city full of Polish rent-boys and Rasta drug-dealers, in the passage from conservatism to manufactured anarchy, South African readers will recognise and, perhaps, applaud the stubborn vulnerability of the provincial Princess and his mom.
Feed
Verdict: carrot
Dec
