Dark Traces

DEBUT South African Police Warrant Officer Jan Magson works in Cape Town's Violent Crimes Unit. Still grieving the loss of his wife, he is called to a crime scene just out of town. The pathologist, having discovered that the victim had been hanged before being dumped, remembers a similar recent case. When another body is found, and another girl disappears, Jan and his team find themselves on the hunt for a sadistic serial killer. At the same time, an attempted rapprochement with his estranged son in England does not go well when he refuses to answer his son's questions on how his mother died. Fighting to hold it together so he can stay on the case, Jan races to find the killer before the body count gets higher.

VERDICT A damaged but determined detective is matched against a bold and intelligent killer in this captivating debut thriller. Steyn's Cape Town will be familiar to any city dweller who no longer knows their neighbors and hides behind barred windows. [Catalyst is a new press devoted to African literature.--Ed.]

Library Journal--Dan Forrest, Western Kentucky Univ. Libs

A tense and grisly debut novel of suspense from South Africa.

"Yet another Sunday lunch with the family interrupted by blood and maggots" sets the tone perfectly for this thriller set in Bishop Lavis, a town in western South Africa. A bird-watcher finds a decomposing body, and the medical examiner says it's a teenage girl who has been hanged. Murder by hanging is a new crime for Warrant Officers Jan "Mags" Magson and Colin Menck, partners in the Serious Violent Crimes Unit on the Western Cape. They're two smart cops with distinctly different outlooks on life. Magson: "Sometimes I think weapons and greed are the only reasons we're at the top of the food chain." Menck: "Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue." Magson's near-suicidal sorrow at the recent death of his wife, Emma, further darkens the plot of a mysterious spree targeting teenage girls. Cops speculate that the victims are lured or forced into a car before being violently raped, then hanged or strangled and dumped into a field. Mags and Menck interrogate a suspect who'd exposed himself to a schoolgirl a few years earlier, and they think they may have their man when another suspect claims, "I didn't murder anyone! It was just sex!" The tension stays high and the narrative and dialogue stay interesting--thank goodness for the upfront glossary that explains such words as klagtebakkie (the vehicles used by uniformed police officers) and oom (uncle, or a term used to respectfully address an older male). Luckily, Menck occasionally lifts the story's pervading tone. In one interrogation, he warns the suspect of Magson's foul mood: "You see, my partner here chooses not to use the number one toothpaste as recommended by dentists," and the resulting sore tooth makes him irritable and impatient.

A dark, intriguing, and satisfying tale with strong characters.

--Kirkus (Starred Review)