cbr17bingo TBR
This was fascinating, a murder mystery set in a time and place that was unfamiliar to me. In the early 1950s, South Africa had just entered into its apartheid era. What had been previously informal, now became rigidly structured by law. The population was strictly divided between the whites (original Dutch settlers and the mostly English settlers that followed – two distinct groups), the native Africans, and the colored population (for the most part settlers from India and anyone who was of a mixed race background). Where you could live, who you could love, and more, were strictly governed by your racial classification. But since this was all relatively new, there was a lot of grey in the mix. Birth records, if they existed, were frequently vague, and who you were, status wise, was often just based on appearance, never a trustworthy criteria.
So into this mess walks Detective Cooper, an Englishman and recent immigrant. The murder he is investigating is of an Afrikaner patriarch. He was a pillar of the church, and had five sons and an uncompromising upstanding wife, but there turns out to be a lot about his personal life of which none of them knew.
I was fascinated by the description of this intricate society, still very much in a formation stage, and the author’s wonderful sense of the country (she is a native of Swaziland – at this time part of South Africa and now independent). Not everyone is who others think them to be, which just adds a whole other level to this complex region. And of course, the mystery is not easily solved – perfect.