Bloodthirsty race for baby with shocking secret in him
THIS book reads like a movie, a fast-moving thriller starting with a hijack outside Durban, to multiple chases towards northern KwaZuluNatal and its game parks.
But the breathless running and the will to evade murderous terrorists does not end there for conservationist Mike Dunn and his strange crew, which includes probably the world’s most wanted baby boy.
Dunn, pilot Nia and teenagers Temba and Lerato’s escape continues up the northern most part of the Kruger National Park until eastern Zimbabwe, near the Mozambique border.
This wilderness paradise, known as Sengwe Corridor, is the stomping ground of some of the largest elephants in Africa – but it is also a notorious passageway for car theft gangs, wildlife trade syndicates, as well as human traffickers.
All four meet by accident, on the outskirts of Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve in KwaZulu-Natal.
Only Dunn, a nature conservationist, and 17-year-old Temba Nyathi know each other from the past; both are strangers to the two women they are running with. The event which teams them up takes place on the N2, up the road from King Shaka International Airport.
Suzanne Fessey briefly stops her Fortuner on the roadside when she is ambushed by two armed hijackers. She manages to shoot one of them, but Joseph, who happens to be Temba’s cousin, manages to steal the car.
He speeds all the way towards his village, outside Hluhluwe-Imfolozi, with an unlikely cargo including a baby and a rhino horn.
Earlier that day Suzanne’s husband died in a suicide bomb attack that killed a US ambassador in Durban. The manner in which Suzanne reacted to her armed attackers reveals something eerily unusual about her. So is her choice not to report her hijack to the police, but rather to discreetly alert armed response. The chasing guard is the boyfriend of Nia Carras, a pilot for a private company, who joins the chase from the air.
At the same time, Temba and Lerato had left their school in Mtubatuba town, using a taxi.
This, after Lerato’s father – a wealthy ex-politician and now businessman, Bandile Sibongile – failed to pick her up as usual.
He is held up in a rhino trade stakeout at a mining settlement nearby, which led to a shootout.
More role players join in – many of whom are strange-looking and heavily armed colleagues of Suzanne; and a CIA crew.
Dunn is dragged in by his investigation of the vulture-head trade, and disturbing information about Temba, his former protégé.
The red earth in the title refers to the red soil of the Zululand district, where most of the action occurs. It also speaks of the blood that spills to the ground as Suzanne and her gang hunt for her baby.
Among her victims is a Mtubatuba policewoman, who dies for her enthusiasm to investigate suspicious noises in her area.
Author Tony Park, a former reporter, is an Australian writer who has taken a liking to writing about southern Africa. In this novel he highlights issues of IS-linked international terrorism, wildlife poaching, notably the little-reported decimation of vulture numbers. It is believed their heads make a concoction that can win one the lottery.
However, I noted a dodgy fact of history, when he refers to a period pre-1994, when Suzanne’s lieutenant Egil Paulsen saw “the beatings and machete wounds inflicted by Zulu against Xhosa ...” Where did that happen? Overall the entertainment level is as massive as the yellow fever trees (umkhanyakude) of Hluhluwe.