The Gooseberry Fool

A South African’s murder reveals surprising secrets in “one of the finest police series to begin in the 1970s” (Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine).

Hugo Swart, faithful churchgoer and respected citizen, is found stabbed to death on the floor of his kitchen just before Christmas, on the hottest night of the year. If Mr. Swart’s reverend is to be believed, no one in the world could have a reason to kill him; the murder was most likely a robbery gone ugly, and the chief suspect is Swart’s black servant, Shabalala, who has fled to the countryside.

But Lieutenant Kramer suspects that not everything is as it appears. While Zondi pursues Shabalala in what turns out to be a treacherous tour of miserable outlying Bantu villages, Kramer tries to wring the truth out of some of Swart’s acquaintances in Trekkersburg and Cape Town. It seems not everyone liked the victim quite as much as the reverend did . . .