Salamander Cotton
A Novel
-
- $12.99
-
- $12.99
Publisher Description
A dark, chilling mystery set in the brooding, atmospheric lands of South Africa
In his debut thriller, Bloody Harvests, Richard Kunzmann gave readers a glimpse into the turbulent South African landscape. Now Detective Inspector Jacob Tshabalala and his former colleague Harry Mason return with another beautifully spellbinding thriller combining murder, revenge, greed, and the classic struggle between good and evil.
A wealthy ex-mining boss has been found beaten and burned to death at his home in suburban Johannesburg. His estranged wife, however, does not seem particularly surprised by this cold-blooded murder, but keeps insisting that the killer will be found in the Northern Cape, where the victim owned a farm with a dark secret. It's a remote and desolate landscape of extreme poverty, burdened with a bleak history as an asbestos-mining community.
When Tshabalala persuades Mason to investigate a link between the man's murder and the disappearance of his daughter thirty years before, Harry has no way of knowing he will soon be plunged into a menacing world of rumored supernatural attacks, corporate cover-ups, ruthless hijackers, and bitter vengeance.
Kunzmann returns with a strong force, capturing the bitter landscape and people of Johannesburg and beyond--captivating readers with his plot twists, dramatic action, and engaging characters. Salamander Cotton is a representation of poverty and a portrait of a country whose values of freedom and justice are only just emerging.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
South African author Kunzmann clearly establishes himself as a major league talent with his second book (after 2006's Bloody Harvests) to feature Johannesburg DI Jacob Tshabalala. Investigating the savage murder of Bernard Klamm, an elderly mining boss with an extensive collection of child pornography, Tshabalala quickly learns that Klamm is survived by his long-estranged ex-wife, Henrietta Campbell, and that the couple lost their daughter decades earlier to another killer. When Campbell asks the inspector to recommend a private investigator to delve into that old crime, Tshabalala taps a retired officer and friend, Harry Mason. Mason soon becomes the book's central focus as he travels to the isolated site of Klamm's asbestos mines to uncover the solution of both murders. With surprising ease, Kunzmann evokes South Africa of both the 1960s and the early 2000s while building a richly textured police procedural around a twisty but plausible whodunit. Not many authors, let alone new ones, have succeeded as Kunzmann has in creating a three-dimensional world, peopled with memorable characters.
