Reconciliation for the Dead
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Fresh from events in Yemen and Cyprus, vigilante justice-seeker Claymore Straker returns to South Africa, seeking absolution for the sins of his past. Over four days, he testifies to Desmond Tutu's newly established Truth and Reconciliation Commission, recounting the shattering events that led to his dishonourable discharge and exile, fifteen years earlier.
It was 1980. The height of the Cold War. Clay is a young paratrooper in the South African Army, fighting in Angola against the Communist insurgency that threatens to topple the White Apartheid regime. On a patrol deep inside Angola, Clay, and his best friend, Eben Barstow, find themselves enmeshed in a tangled conspiracy that threatens everything they have been taught to believe about war, and the sacrifices that they, and their brothers in arms, are expected to make. Witness and unwitting accomplice to an act of shocking brutality, Clay changes allegiance and finds himself labelled a deserter and accused of high treason, setting him on a journey into the dark, twisted heart of institutionalised hatred, from which no one will emerge unscathed.
Exploring true events from one of the most hateful chapters in South African history, Reconciliation for the Dead is a shocking, explosive and gripping thriller from one finest writers in contemporary crime fiction.
'This is a remarkably well-written, sophisticated novel in which the people and places, as well as frequent scenes of violent action, all come alive on the page...' Jessica Mann, Literary Review
'A trenchant and engaging thriller that unravels this mysterious land in cool, precise sentences' Stav Sherez, Catholic Herald
'Smart, gripping, superbly crafted oil-industry thriller' Helen Giltrow, Crime Review
'Reconciliation for the Dead is a gripping, page-turning thriller that is overflowing with substance to go along with Hardisty's atmospheric prose and strong narrative style' Craig Sisterson, Mystery Magazine
'Laces the thrills and spills with enough moral indignation to give the book heft … excellent' Jake Kerridge, Telegraph
'The writing at times is poetic, at other times filled with tension in a narrative complete with well delineated characters and several shocks. Highly Recommended' Shots Mag
'A solid, meaty thriller – Hardisty is a fine writer and Straker is a great lead character' Lee Child
'A stormer of a thriller, vividly written, utterly tropical, totally gripping' Peter James
'The author's deep knowledge of the settings never slows down the non-stop action, with distant echoes of a more moral-minded Jack Reacher or Jason Bourne' Maxim Jakubowski
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Based on actual events, Hardisty's searing third Claymore Straker thriller (after The Evolution of Fear), a tale of racial hatred, greed, and corruption, might break the reader's heart or tear it out. In 1996, Clay returns from exile to South Africa, where he testifies before Desmond Tutu's newly formed Truth and Reconciliation Commission in the hope of being granted amnesty for alleged war crimes. Flash back to 1981, when Clay was a 21-year-old South African paratrooper fighting communist forces in Angola's civil war. Clay and his best friend, Eben Barstow, witness and are forced to participate in torture, massacres of humans and animals, and warped medical experiments. In transcripts of his trial, Clay, who was suffering from delusions and other mental illnesses at the time he was dishonorably discharged from the army, asserts that the truth must be told. He testifies not only to seek forgiveness but to speak for the dead for whom he feels that he and his country are responsible, unforgettably personifying South Africa's troubled history. The writing can be disturbingly graphic but it also at times achieves the level of genuine poetry.
