Of Wild Dogs

Something nasty is coming out of the woodwork at the Museum, and in the lonely bushveld, it's not only Nature that's red in tooth and claw. This sparkling first novel by respected academic Jane Taylor is a whodunnit with local flavour and postmodern flair.

An artist at the Museum is dead: sharp-tongued Hannah, a former exile, whose passions turn out to be fatal. Three very different people must combine forces to uncover her murderer: Ewan Christopher, Hannah's former lover and a British journalist, out of his depth in the new South Africa; Inspector Cicero Matyobeni, the world-weary policeman from Khayelitsha, holding on to his compassion for dear life; and the beautiful but insecure pathologist, Helena de Villiers, who is becoming perhaps too personally involved.

The action moves from the Company Gardens of Cape Town to the wild grasslands of the Limpopo Province, in a complex and clever plot, full of red herrings and puns, and peopled by academics, chiefs, corrupt businessmen, sangomas, ex-security policemen, car-guards and a Greek goddess or two.