So we are back in the newly segregated apartheid version of South Africa, as formed in the 1950s. Detective Emmanuel Cooper has had to revert from his former status as WWII vet and (most importantly) white person, to mixed race instead. But Major van Niekerk (white Afrikaner) has a need for him and his partner and friend, the Zulu Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala, tracker extraordinaire. A poor young white boy, Jolly Marks, had been found in the port town of Durban, South Africa, near the train tracks with his throat slit. White he might be, but of no importance to anyone as far as Cooper can see. So why the urgent need to find his killer? Then when an elderly woman and her maid, both residents of the same boarding house Cooper is temporarily living in, are murdered as well, the need to find the killer is now closer to home. Not to mention that if he plays this right, the Major may be in a position to restore his white race card and his former job as Detective Inspector.
But there was that night he spent with the Major’s fiancé. Just a one shot, but one they both thoroughly enjoyed. His profane inner Scottish drill master is not pleased. That is the voice in his head in times of danger, helping him as he did in real life to get him through the War.
Okay, I know I’m only supposed to front up when the blood sprays the walls. . . But we’ve got to talk about the dead boy”. Inner drill master is right. He always is.