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African Peoples & Cultures - Fiction & Literature, Thrillers, Crimes - Fiction, Crime Fiction
Zulu by Caryl Ferey — book cover

Zulu

by Caryl Ferey
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Overview

As a child, Ali Neuman ran away from home to escape the Inkatha, a militant political party at war with the then-underground African National Congress. He and his mother are the only members of his family that survived the carnage of those years and the psychological scars remain. 

Today, Neuman is chief of the homicide branch of the Cape Town police, a job in which he must do battle with South Africa’s two scourges: widespread violence and AIDS. When the mutilated corpse of a young white woman is found in the city’s botanical gardens, Neuman’s job gets even more difficult. He is chasing one false lead after another when a second corpse, again that of a white woman, is found. This time, the body bears signs of a Zulu ritual. A new evil has insinuated itself into this recently integrated city. And a new drug: traces of an unknown narcotic have been found in the blood of both victims. The investigation will take Neuman back to his homeland, where he will discover that the once bloody killing fields have become the ideal no-man’s land for unscrupulous multinationals, and that the apparatchiks of apartheid still lurk in the shadows and the back rooms of a society struggling toward reconciliation.

Soon to be a major motion picture.

Synopsis

As a child, Ali Neuman ran away from home to escape the Inkatha, a militant political party at war with the then-underground African National Congress. He and his mother are the only members of his family that survived the carnage of those years and the psychological scars remain.

Today, Neuman is chief of the homicide branch of the Cape Town police, a job in which he must do battle with South Africa's two scourges: widespread violence and AIDS. When the mutilated corpse of a young white woman is found in the city's botanical gardens, Neuman's job gets even more difficult. He is chasing one false lead after another when a second corpse, again that of a white woman, is found. This time, the body bears signs of a Zulu ritual. A new evil has insinuated itself into this recently integrated city. And a new drug: traces of an unknown narcotic have been found in the blood of both victims. The investigation will take Neuman back to his homeland, where he will discover that the once bloody killing fields have become the ideal no-man's land for unscrupulous multinationals, and that the apparatchiks of apartheid still lurk in the shadows and the back rooms of a society struggling toward reconciliation.

Soon to be a major motion picture.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly

Readers should be prepared for graphic scenes of shocking violence in Férey's hard-hitting procedural, which won France's Grand Prix for Best Crime Novel. Ali Neuman, the chief of the Cape Town police crime unit, investigates the murder of 18-year-old Nicole Wiese, found one morning in the South African city's botanical gardens with her skull crushed in. Since the victim's father was a member of the Springboks rugby team that won the world championship in 1995, the case attracts heavy press coverage. The trail leads Neuman to an extraordinarily brutal narcotics gang with links to a former apartheid official. The good guys don't walk away from their encounters with the bad guys unscathed. This is a welcome addition to the growing ranks of crime books set in South Africa—powerful and unflinching in its portrayal of evil both mindless and calculating. (May)

Kirkus Reviews

A crime novel set in post-apartheid South Africa, and the winner of the French Grand Prix for Best Crime Novel of 2008. As head of the Crime Unit, Ali Neuman has one of the most dangerous jobs in Cape Town. The fact that he is a black man investigating blacks, mulattos and whites doesn't make it any easier. When a white girl from a prominent family turns up dead, Neuman and his partners, Dan Fletcher and Brian Epkeen, are thrown into the most dangerous and important case of their lives. Their investigation leads them into the dark underbelly of Cape Town's townships-and eventually to drug dealers, gangs and powerful white men who manipulate blacks on society's lowest rung. The closer these three policemen get to the truth, the more their lives-and the lives of the ones they love-are in danger. As the bodies pile up, the novel masterfully depicts the abject poverty of Cape Town's slums and the desperation of the townships' residents, most of whom turn to drugs, gang activity, prostitution or some combination of the three. The novel, brutally honest, at times violent and grotesque, is both a scathing commentary on South African current affairs and a powerful tribute to those who put their lives on the line to make things right. A horrifying, eye-opening thriller.

Book Details

Published
April 1, 2010
Publisher
Europa Editions, Incorporated
Pages
416
Format
Paperback
ISBN
9781933372884

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