Moonbeams and Shadows

A dynamic engagement of the past and fascinating story of a courageous young man who was a “Bobby on the Beat” age 19, Detective Constable Probationer age 20, Detective Constable Suspect Branch age 22, Detective Sergeant age 24, Member of Special Force of twelve detectives to hunt down German spies and saboteur in South Africa during WW2 (1939, age 26). At the end of the war he was discharged as medically unfit due to various injuries sustained during the war. E. W. Tonkin joined the Cape Times as a crime reporter and entered the world of twilight politics and head-on confrontation with the South African Apartheid Government. He died very suddenly on the 11th September 1950 age 37 on the same night as South Africa’s wartime Prime Minister Field Marshall Jan Smuts.