by Marianne Thamm (Jacana)
As an important addition to extensive news coverage of the Jackie Selebi scandal, this is a fascinating “inside story” of how an exhaustive and expensive mission, undertaken by Irish-born policeman turned forensic consultant Paul O’Sullivan to gain personal justice, turned out to be a good thing for our young democracy.
O’Sullivan comes across as a man who will do anything to put a criminal behind bars, especially one who “pisses in my Guinness”.
Indeed, there’s the feeling that Dirty Harry’s no-nonsense style got mixed with Sherlock Holmes’s note-taking skills and James Bond’s undercover talents as O’Sullivan crazily embarked on an 8-year battle that cost more than R5 million and almost his life to bring down the former police chief, after he lost a “dream job” at the Airports Company of South Africa.
And when you see just how much detail there is in the 244-page tale of rotten cops, self-serving politicians and dangerous gangsters, it is easy to believe the front cover’s claim that it is soon to be a major motion picture.
The book is also a commentary on the country’s moral compass being off, but despite him having seen how power and money have corrupted so many South Africans, O’Sullivan is optimistic and the old cop in him believes the good guys always win in the end.
For sure, once he had beaten his breast at the successful end to the long Selebi investigation, O’Sullivan busted a rhino-poaching syndicate and then took aim at Czech fugitive Radovan Krejcir to prevent him from spreading his nefarious underworld network in our beautiful, but corruptible country.