BRINGING IT HOME
Four unmissable new releases by South African authors
ACCIDENT
BY DAWN GARISCH, Modjaji Carol Trehorne is a general practitioner with a busy suburban practice. She’s also a single mom and is worried out of her mind when her son, Max, a performance artist, lands up in intensive care after setting himself alight.
She tries to persuade him to seek another, less dangerous pursuit. Yet despite his injuries Max is adamant that he’s going to continue putting his body on the line to perform his risky stunts. His mom just can’t get through to him.
Carol starts to wonder if her son is on drugs or going psychotic, or if something in his past has sparked what she sees as his selfdestructive behaviour. As the worlds of art and science collide she realises that she doesn’t really know her son at all.
BAD SEEDS
BY JASSY MACKENZIE, Umuzi After a nuclear research centre near Johannesburg is the target of a sabotage attempt, private investigator Jade de Jong is hired to find Carlos Botha, the missing employee who’s believed to have been involved. But after tracking him down to a rundown motel on the West Rand, Jade discovers she isn’t the only one looking for him. Someone has put a hit on Botha.
Jade has to hide her identity in a bid to get close to Botha as she discovers disturbing secrets about the research centre. It’s a race against the clock to prevent a nuclear disaster that could have global ramifications. At the same time Jade has to play her cards close to her chest, because if Botha finds out who she is, the consequences might be fatal.
Although this is the fifth in the De Jong series you don’t have to have read any of the others – it works well as a standalone read.
SPIRE
BY FIONA SNYCKERS, Clockwork Books Dr Caroline Burchell is a surgeon and virologist stationed in the loneliest outpost on Earth – a tiny research centre in Antarctica.
When a box of mutated and cryogenically frozen viruses is brought to the station under armed guard, all hell breaks loose. Within a matter of days diseases that haven’t been seen since the Middle Ages are rearing their ugly head and people are dying like flies. The weather prevents any help from getting through so it’s up to Caroline to try to contain the outbreak. Then, to make matters even worse, a big storm rolls in, leaving her stranded on her own. But as she’s soon to discover there’s one thing worse than being alone: not being alone.
All is not what it seems in this creepy thriller, the second in Snyckers’ Burchell sisters trilogy.
Spire is Snyckers’ fifth novel.