These are some of the books our books editor, Meneesha Govender, received recently. They may be reviewed later
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Rachel’s Blue
by Zakes Mda (Kwela, R195)
Rachel’s Blue is set in Ohio in the US.
It is an exploration of the fall-out in a small community when a rapist fights for parenting rights of a child conceived from rape.
Though it is set in America, rape is a global issue and one that South Africans are faced with.
By setting this novel in the US, Mda lets the reader move out of the South African space and engage with the struggles of women in an impoverished community there.
It is an engagement that inevitably has the reader thinking of how this can mirror what happens in South Africa.
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The Competition
by Marcia Clark (Hodder & Stoughton, R285)
A Columbine-style massacre in a school hall has left the community in shock.
Two pupils, identified as the killers, are dead and it is believed that they have committed a mutual suicide.
But as LA Special Trials prosecutor Rachel Knight and Detective Bailey Keller investigate, they realise it all does not add up.
Questions arise: did the killers really kill themselves? Are the killers still on the loose?
Then someone starts dropping clues that another crime is about to take place.
Rachel and Bailey find themselves in a race not only to identify the suspects, but to prevent another horrific massacre from taking place.
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Don’t Talk to Strangers
by Amanda Kyle Williams (Headline, R275)
The decomposing body of a girl is found deep in the Georgia forest. Next to her lies the skeletal remains of another girl.
Crime lab reports tell small-town Sheriff Ken Meltzer that one victim has been there for 60 days, the other for 10 years. Both girls are 13 years old.
Homicide is not the sheriff’s speciality so he asks the Atlanta Police Department for urgent help.
They recommend former FBI profiler Keye Street.