Adriaanse has created a lively cast of
well-drawn characters and picks up the pace with skill as the novel heads to
its violent conclusion, via a collection of satisfying twists. (Review by
Margaret von Klemperer, courtesy of The Witness)
Endgame (translated by Elsa Silke) is the sequel to
Wilna Adriaanse’s earlier thriller, Blindside,
and although it can be read as a stand-alone, without the back story it might
take the reader a while to sort out just who is who in the complex world of
cops, both obvious and undercover, gangsters, kidnappers and killers.
Detective
Ellie McKenna has headed off to the Karoo to recover from the trauma, both
physical and emotional, that she suffered in the earlier book. She is relishing
the quiet life, helping out in the pub and, somewhat improbably, deputising for
the church organist. But her past is not that far away, and when two mysterious
men turn up in the church where she is playing, she knows that the time has
come to confront it.
So it’s
back to Cape Town, and into the search for a missing girl, a peripheral member
of a gangland family but also the girlfriend of the unpleasant son of a South
African/Italian gangland boss, whose head of security, Nick Malherbe, is an
undercover cop for Interpol who shares history with Ellie. The son is also
missing, and then his bodyguard turns up dead – the first of a rising body
count.
Abalone,
rhino horn, drugs, dirty money – it’s all here. And Ellie, Nick, a variety of
cops, informers and gangsters have to wade through it all in their efforts to
find the missing Clara and Enzio, and try to work out why they have
disappeared, and who, out of a host of suspects, would be the most likely to
want them out of the way. And then there’s the question of who can be trusted,
and who is playing both sides off against each other.
Adriaanse
has created a lively cast of well-drawn characters and picks up the pace with
skill as the novel heads to its violent conclusion, via a collection of
satisfying twists. - Margaret von Klemperer
Endgame is published in soft cover by Tafelberg. ISBN: 9780624086499.
Recommended retail price R300.00.
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