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De Wildt, South Africa.
On an oppressively hot day, an elderly doctor is found drowned in the dam on her home farm by her sixteen-year-old granddaughter. She slipped to her death.
Bereft, her community remembers a matriarch of fierce spirit, whose talent for healing and instinct for trouble brought solace to the people yet failed her children.
But her granddaughter and detective friend come to question the cause of her death – threatening to expose the fractures in the family with one insistent doubt: she did not slip.
From this discovery, this loss, ripples of disquiet will spread beyond the family; extending to servants and to farmhands; to the police, hospital and town beyond. All must face the wave that turns them from the course of their lives, or be swept under.
On an oppressively hot day, an elderly doctor is found drowned in the dam on her home farm by her sixteen-year-old granddaughter. She slipped to her death.
Bereft, her community remembers a matriarch of fierce spirit, whose talent for healing and instinct for trouble brought solace to the people yet failed her children.
But her granddaughter and detective friend come to question the cause of her death – threatening to expose the fractures in the family with one insistent doubt: she did not slip.
From this discovery, this loss, ripples of disquiet will spread beyond the family; extending to servants and to farmhands; to the police, hospital and town beyond. All must face the wave that turns them from the course of their lives, or be swept under.
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Reviews
This beautifully written book, peopled with rich characters and concerned with eternal questions about love, loyalty, living and dying, may be too leisurely to make it an excellent 'crime novel'. But as a novel whose plot happens to be based on a criminal act, it is outstanding
A compelling read
An excellent, thoughtful book, written in a lyrical and intensely visual manner which no doubt owes something to Proctor's earlier career as a film-maker ... A superb novel that offers a fascinating picture of contemporary South Africa and a profound exploration of the human condition. I doubt that this year will bring along much to top it
The 21st century's South African To Kill a Mockingbird
Intense and beautifully written . . . A complex and deeply satisfying meditation on the weighty matters of being human . . . Deeply moving