Features

Interview: HJ Golakai

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Hawa Jande Golakai is a crime novelist and clinical scientist from Liberia. She featured in the prestigious Africa 39 Project via which the Hay Festival celebrated African authors under the age of 40, and she recently appeared at the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Her novel…
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Dead of Night

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Written by Michael Stanley — The South African crime writing duo Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip have taken a break from their Detective Kubu series, set in Botswana, for a standalone. The authors have never shyed away from tackling troubling subjects that beset the African continent like…
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Book Club

Fever

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Deon Meyer has been called the king of South African crime fiction and with Fever he’s written a thriller you will not easily forget. After a rogue virus kills 95 percent of the world’s population, polymath Willem Storm and his son Nico set out to…
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Weeping Waters by Karin Brynard

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Translated by Maya Fowler and Isobel Dixon — South African crime fiction is going from strength to strength in both English and Afrikaans. Deon Meyer might dominate the landscape still with his pacey plots and thorough characterisation, but authors such as Roger Smith, Lauren Beukes,…
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Fever

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Written by Deon Meyer, translated by KL Seegers — Opening with the lines, “I want to tell you about my father’s murder. I want to tell you who killed him and why,” this leading Afrikaans author takes a good long while, almost 450 pages, to…
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Book Club

Agents of the State

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Newly appointed State Security Agent Vicki Khan and her surf bum/private investigator boyfriend Fish Pescado find echoes of South Africa’s apartheid past in Mike Nicol’s espionage thriller. Vicki is sent to Europe to bring in a crucial witness in a child trafficking case, while Pescado…
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KindleReviews

The Truth Itself by James Rayburn

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By Roger Smith writing as James Rayburn — The South African crime novelist Roger Smith has written under a pseudonym before. In 2012 he wrote Vile Blood, a horror novel, under the name Max Wilde. In this latest book, Smith has again taken a step away…
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Agents of the State

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Written by Mike Nicol — The Rainbow Nation is developing a well- deserved reputation for excellent crime fiction. Perhaps it’s not surprising since its unfortunate history provides fertile grounds for inspiration. Lauren Beukes’ brand of supernatural-tinged mystery and suspense has already achieved breakout international success. Roger Smith’s nihilistic…
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