Review: Our Fathers by Karin Brynard

Click to view on Amazon

There is still one book I read in 2018 that I haven't written about here: Karin Brynard's Our Fathers. This is the second in her Captain Albertus Beeslar series. The first is Weeping Waters and the third is Homeland. They are available in English and Afrikaans. Weeping Waters is available as a Kindle edition here. Our Fathers can be purchased from Book Depository.

This is a long post so let me say upfront that I really enjoyed this book and would like to hear what South Africans think of it.

For US readers of this blog, Our Fathers is very South African in story elements as well a language. Be prepared to visit Google frequently. Personally, I love books with local flavor so I think it's worth it.

This time the settings are Cape Town and Johannesburg. Albertus is on his way to visit an old friend in Cape Town when he gets a phone call that his friend, an old school colonel in the SAPS has died. After the funeral. At the funeral one of the mourners gets a call that her daughter-in-law, wife of a wealthy Stellenbach property developer has been brutally murdered. He is reluctantly pulled along to the crime scene where he meets Captain Vuyokazi Qhubeka (Vuvu). This is her first big investigation. While initially cool to Alburtus, she manages to ensnare him into the investigation, unofficially. It is awkward for him because he has no status in the case but the white family is overtly hostile to the Black captain and try to make him their personal investigator.

In Johannesburg, Sgt Johannes Ghaap has transferred to Johannesburg from the Kalahari where he and Beeslar worked together. Beeslar warned him that he wasn't ready for the big time and he was right. Ghaap is an outsider who doesn't know the lingo to be able to communicate effectively. Through a series of misadventures, he gets involved with trackies, private security who pursue hijacking and stolen cars for their clients. One case becomes desperate when a pregnant white woman with a small child is kidnapped in Soweto. It is even more desperate when it emerges that an legendary evil man known as The Fatha is involved.

Karin writes very good crime fiction and she is on my "always buy" watch list. This is tricky since her books are not readily available in the US. Readers not from SA might have difficulty since the stories are intensely South African. I can generally hold my own thanks to my long-time reading of SA literature, online SA newspapers, and Google. I learned lots of new slang words here.

Underlying the Cape Town story are issues of apartheid, distrust between Blacks and Whites, and land. Basically, what a mess South Africa is in. One character toward the end gives an impassioned speech on why the moral framework of South Africa is disintegrating and it hits a little too close to home for Beeslar's comfort.The social issues flow through the Cape Town and Johannesburg stories and are integrated into it without being imposed. By the time the book ends, the title will make sense.

I very much enjoyed the way Karin shows the criminal investigations proceeding. The trackies in Johannesburg dominate that story and it's both exciting and interesting. The author might have exaggerated their activities a bit but from what I've not by much. Karin rode with a Joburg company, Tracker, as part of her research. The Cape Town investigation is a bit more subtle since everyone is lying, big money and lawyers are involved, and the SAPS brass wants to see a quick resolution.

The character of Albertus Beeslar is very nicely developed. He is a blunt, rough, Boer only interested in justice. He is also very impatient and doesn't always want to listen. Often the reader —at least this one — would like to give him a klap to make him really hear what someone is trying to tell him.

Captain Vuyokazi Ohubeka — and her relationship with Beeslar — is an interesting part of the Cape Town story. Her trying to conduct a thorough investigation in the face of racial hostility and pressure from above is well done. She's someone I'd like to know in real life and I hope Brynard has plans for her in future books. I think she is strong enough for a book of her own she and Beeslar make for a good team as well.

Sitting 3,898 km away I come away from this book feeling both entertained as well as informed (the author includes a bibliography which warms this librarian's heart). I would be interested in hearing what people living in SA think about the book and how Brynard integrates social issues.