Most South Africans complain about the way the country is run. And, heaven knows, we have reason to complain. We all know about rising prices, political bosses living off the fat of the land while your supermarket trolley becomes increasingly unaffordable. And then, Eskom plans a price increase few can
After years in the prison system Beloved Childe truly believes that all other prison personnel see the dangers posed by many of the inmates. And she is right in most cases. She knows that prison guards are simple men and they see the inmates the way enemy soldiers see prisoners
Magnuson, a ruthless killer, is faced with approaching death by lethal injection. Escape from Death Row is almost impossible. His only chance lies in Gillian Patterson, the new prison doctor. He can see her weakness, and plans to exploit it. It is clear that life has not been easy for
Everyone who has the task of hiring people sometimes makes mistakes. Prison authorities are no different. Hiring Gillian Patterson as a prison doctor was such a mistake. She came from two failed marriages, one to a good man who bored her, and the other to a rotten man who almost
Cults have been a reality since the days when witchcraft was commonly practised, and even before. Membership of a cult appeals to many. The member becomes part of a closed community and enjoys the comfort of being part of something important and exclusive. Like mainstream religion, the adherent may feel
The creation of Beloved Childe, the hero* of The Gathering, came about almost accidentally. She appeared for the first time as an important but minor character in The Top Prisoner of C-Max, a Yudel Gordon story. In that story she is visiting from the United States to find and punish
Under the Common Purpose doctrine anyone who was present at a homicide and was judged to be of one mind with the killer was also guilty. If Common Purpose is applied, instead of being found guilty as an accessory, the onlooker can also be judged a murderer. Judge Meyer was
As the old political order started to fall away in South Africa, the changes in the country affected everyone. Many of the unfranchised majority, especially young people, who were going to feel themselves free for the first time, were seized by a great urgency. Was it possible, they wondered, that
The first Yudel Gordon story was entitled A LONELY PLACE TO DIE. At the time there had been a succession of attacks on well-known opponents of Apartheid. Some of them resulted in assassinations. I was still unpublished, but in these attacks I saw plenty of material for thrillers and also
Writing a thriller is different to writing any other kind of novel. The story’s structure is everything. Scenes have to follow each other logically and they have to draw the reader in so that he or she simply cannot put the book down. The reader simply must know what is