The Serpentine Road (Col Vaughn de Vries 2 )

Author/Guide: Paul Mendelson

Why a Booktrail?

1994, 2000s: The changing face of South Africa might still be poisoned by some of its former shadows..

ISBN: 978-1472111388
Genre: Crime

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What you need to know before your trail

The release of Nelson Mandela and the promise of free elections was supposed to herald a new era in South Africa’s future, but extremist groups still terrorised the country, bombing churches and firing on innocent people going about their daily life. Vaughn de Vries remembers that time better than most for there was a fatal bombing in his own precinct and he investigated the case. The event set off a chain of events which would last years…

In Cape Town in 2015, a murder of the heiress of an Apartheid-era industrialist is suspected to be racially motivated. And as De Vries looks further into the matter, he discovers a lot about her background that could alter the direction and sensitivity of the case.

Moving South down through the country, five men are murdered, each with a connection to a point in history De Vries would sooner forget.

Locations

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Travel Guide

Set against the South Africa landscape, this is an insight into the South African psyche and the changing face of the country as it leaves its apartheid shame behind it and moves into the modern world.

But not all things move at the same speed, and racially motivated crimes are still part of the blot on the landscape. A landscape which is stunningly beautiful so the horror of murder and torture is even more pronounced.

“South African Police Captain Vaughn de Vries can make out eight blanket covered mounds in human form.”

The landscape however:

“Devil’s Peak is shrouded in fast moving dark cloud an rain falls sporadically but hard, diagonally across the taped off streets..”

Post Apartheid Africa is both a theme and a backdrop – and of course Nelson Mandela’s legacy lives on.

This is a complicated and confused country to many but one which many people are keen to move into more pleasant times. As he drives past the air port for example:

Already, De Vries knows, more people arrive in South Africa as sanctions are lifted and the pariah state is re-welcomed back into the word. What kind of country will it be that raises is head amongst its peers?

Fact and fiction

The author states that the action of the APLA and the events surrounding the attack at tae Heidelberg Tavern in Cape town are real but that the bombing of the Victoria drinking hall are fictitious

Some places in the novel are real but the more specific ones are imagined and the people in the novel are all imagined.

Oranjezicht is a residential area just about the CBD of Cape Town on the lower slopes of Table Mountain and the view from here as described in the book really is breathtaking!