★ 德文版的《Dust Devils》獲書評家一致評選為本月最佳犯罪小說的第一名！這是作家Roger Smith繼上本小說《Capture》後，第二次獲得該項評選。
★ 美國亞馬遜電子書城讀者五顆星推薦！
★ 《Dust Devils》已售出英、美、德和西班牙等4國版權。

曾是電影製作人、導演和編劇的Roger Smith擅長將電影元素和人物個性滲透在故事中，加強故事張力。他曾榮獲2010年德國的Deustschen Krimi Preis、入圍美國Spinetingler Best Novel Award！

A visceral, violent, journey into the dark heart of post-apartheid South Africa, from a thriller writer being compared to George Pelecanos and James Ellroy.

Framed for the murder of his wife and children after a seemingly random act of violence claims their lives, Robert Dell, a forty-something white liberal journalist goes on the run, his only ally the American father he hasn’t seen in twenty years. Bobby Goodbread, an ex-CIA contract killer finally free after years in prison for atrocities he committed under the apartheid regime, is desperate to reconcile with his son, and find some small measure of redemption.

On a bloody road trip across the starkly beautiful South African landscape – from wealthy, Eurocentric, Cape Town to the depths of a Zulu tribal valley where AIDS, savage feuds and poverty have left the population as gutted as the parched red earth – the men hunt down the real killer, Inja (Dog) Mazibuko, uncovering a conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of the South African State. By the time Dell confronts Mazibuko, the one-time anti-apartheid activist’s idealism is as dead as the trail of bodies he and his father have left in their wake.

In an intricate, Altmanesque structure, the journey of Dell and Goodbread is inter-twined with that of Johannesburg sophisticate, Zulu special investigator Disaster Zondi (last seen in Mixed Blood). With his investigative unit eviscerated by political power plays, Zondi returns to the rural valley he fled as a youth, to rescue a teenage girl – who may or may not be his daughter – sold into marriage to Inja Mazibuko. Before Zondi finds the girl he has to confront old ghosts, new enemies, and frailties deep within himself.

As the strands of the fast-paced narrative collide, these men are thrown together in a spiral of searing violence and retribution in a country where – far from the floodlit glamor of the World Cup – brutal tyranny has been replaced by corruption and anarchy, and human life has never been cheaper.

 

Roger Smith was born in Johannesbury, South Africa, and now lives in Cape Town. Before turning to a life of crime, he was a screenwriter, producer and director. His debit thriller, Mixed Blood, was published in six countries. It won the Deustschen Krimi Preis 2010 in Germany and was nominated for a Spinetingler Best Novel award in the US. His second book, Wake Up Dead, has been nominated or a Krimi-Blitz Reader’s Award in Germany and a Spinetingler award.