Customer Reviews

Gooseberry Fool

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Hugo Swart was killed in his kitchen on the hottest night of the year. there was pain, and suspicion, and more dearth before the answer was found. Readers who know Kramer and Zondi-and the Widow Fourie-will be pleased to rejoin them in this, McClure's third novel about them.

The city of Trekkerburg is in a heat wave, and we first meet Detective Kramer sitting naked in a stall in the headquarters bathroom, where he is hiding out from the whole department, fed up. The cistern provides cool water which he can occasionally pour over himself.

Then he is called to the murder scene of Hugo Swart, an avid pillar of the church who has been stabbed to death in his kitchen. But something is wrong with the investigation, someone if interfering....Kramer suspects they are out to get him.

Like other Kramer/Zondi mysteries, this one is a big, steaming slice of life in South Africa under apartheid.
The vivid descriptions of life for black and white may turn the stomach of the tender reader, but the Homicide Lieutenant and his Bantu Sergeant are so strongly portrayed, so lovable (if someone can be called lovable who is also utterly ruthless and cynical) that the story holds you in it's grip to the last word.

This one is my favorite, 1. because it is not quite as gruesome and/or horrific and the others, and 2. because it contains the unforgettable story of what happens when Zondi is confronted with a mob of murderously bloodthirsty Zulu women.