基本信息出版社：Minotaur Books
页码：320 页
出版日期：2007年11月
ISBN：0312360347
International Standard Book Number：0312360347
条形码：9780312360344
EAN：9780312360344
版本：1st
装帧：精装
正文语种：英语
内容简介
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.
Praise for Bloody Harvests
“Not since James McClure’s outstanding 1970s South African police series has there been this serious an attempt to revisit that culture. . . . A gritty exploration of South Africa’s dark heart. This outstanding novel is sure to win readers everywhere.”
---Library Journal (starred review)
“The author does a fine job of depicting the city’s combustible mix of poverty, ignorance, intolerance, and crime, and the handful of brave men who seek to douse the flames when that mix ignites.”
---Publishers Weekly
“Kunzmann’s debut is an impressive successor to James McClure’s apartheid procedurals.”
---Kirkus Reviews
“Kunzmann has a seasoned and individual voice.”
---Publishing News
“A valuable addition to the South African canon . . . a brilliant first novel by an engaging author. It charts new ground for the thriller/crime genre in South African literature.”
---The Cape Times
“A fast and grisly thriller . . . hails Kunzmann as an impressive new talent in this genre.”
---The Sunday Times
作者简介
Richard Kunzmann was born in Namibia in 1976 and resides in South Africa. He received his master’s in psychology with honors in 2002 and holds a major in criminology---a background that benefits him as a writer of dark crime thrillers set in the violent landscape of South Africa. The myths and legends of Africa have held him in deep fascination, and his novels, including Bloody Harvests, reflect this.
专业书评 From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. 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. (Nov.)
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文摘 Chapter 1
Bernard Klamm sits in the sumptuous study of his Parkview home, deeply engrossed in a book by Sir Laurens van der Post. He is not expecting any visitors, least of all expecting his life to end this night.
The large stuffed armchair he is sitting in is upholstered in polished oxblood leather, secured to its heavy wooden frame with brass studs. On a small table by his left hand stands a snifter of cognac beside a green banker’s reading light angled to cast its full glow over Klamm’s lap. A quilted blanket, thrown over his seventy-nine-year-old knees, provides some comfort against the cold May wind that blasts autumn leaves over the lawn outside. Blue flames whisper amongst fake coals in the large open fireplace, which is flanked by red-oak shelves filled with books. Two of the other walls are lined with numerous black and white photographs.
The man’s brow is furrowed and under bushy white eyebrows his expression is one of either anger or scorn. He inhales regularly in shallow whistles, although he quit pipe smoking more than twenty years ago.
As something in the fireplace crackles loudly, Klamm looks up and glances at the window, noticing how raindrops are collecting on the glass. It is unusual weather for May, indeed.
He does not notice a face staring at him from the darkness beyond, and turns his attention back to the volume he is reading: a detailed study of the Khoisan, who were not only master hunters and survivors but also great historians who documented on cave walls their everyday activities and encounters with other tribes and cultures.
From the kitchen door there is the faint sound of duct tape being torn from a roll. Four strips are neatly applied to one door pane, before an elbow smashes through the glass without any fragments spilling over the floor. This break-in goes unnoticed by the old man in his study. Moments later the door behind Bernard Klamm opens, and soun
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