These Are Not Gentle People

A tense and pacy true-crime thriller

Andrew Harding

$49.99

Hardback

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English

MacLehose Press
01 October 2020

True crime; Reportage & collected journalism; National liberation & independence, post-colonialism; Criminal justice law

"NOW SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA ALCS GOLD DAGGER FOR NON-FICTION

""Utterly gripping, timely and shocking"" PHILIPPE SANDS

""Compelling and disturbing . . . quietly devastating"" DAMON GALGUT

""This is a book of profound importance . . . A masterpiece"" ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH

""A vintage crime story . . . an extraordinary tale . . . It is written as a drama, part thriller, part tragedy"" ALEC RUSSELL, Financial Times

""A smartly paced true-crime thriller with a vivid cast of characters . . . as tense as it is disturbing"" JOHN CARLIN, author of Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation

Two dead men. Forty suspects. The trial that broke a small South African town

""Look what the fucking dogs did to them, someone muttered. No-one mentioned the rope, or the monkey-wrench, or the gun, or the knife, or the stick, or the whip, or the blood-stained boots. In fact, no-one said much at all. It seemed simpler that way. There was no sense in pointing fingers.'""

At dusk, on a warm evening in 2016, a group of forty men gathered in the corner of a dusty field on a farm outside Parys in the Free State. Some were in fury. Others treated the whole thing as a joke - a game. The events of the next two hours would come to haunt them all. They would rip families apart, prompt suicide attempts, breakdowns, divorce, bankruptcy, threats of violent revenge and acts of unforgivable treachery.

These Are Not Gentle People is the story of that night, and of what happened next. It's a courtroom drama, a profound exploration of collective guilt and individual justice, and a fast-paced literary thriller.

Award-winning foreign correspondent and author Andrew Harding traces the impact of one moment of collective barbarism on a fragile community - exploding lies, cover-ups, political meddling and betrayals, and revealing the inner lives of those involved with extraordinary clarity.

The book is also a mesmerising examination of a small town trying to cope with a trauma that threatens to tear it in two - as such, it is as much a journey into the heart of modern South Africa as it is a gripping tale of crime, punishment and redemption.

When a whole community is on trial, who pays the price?"

By: Andrew Harding
Imprint: MacLehose Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 236mm, Width: 158mm, Spine: 28mm
Weight: 480g
ISBN: 9781529405583
ISBN 10: 1529405580
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 01 October 2020
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Andrew Harding left London in 1991, aged twenty-four, and has lived and worked abroad as a foreign correspondent ever since. He spent a decade in the former Soviet Union before moving to east Africa and then to Singapore as the B.B.C.'s Asia correspondent. Since 2009, he has been the B.B.C.'s Africa correspondent. He has reported from numerous conflict zones, including Chechnya, Afghanistan, Iraq, D.R. Congo, Burma, Central African Republic, Mali, Cote d'Ivoire and Libya, winning many awards including an Emmy. Andrew is married, with three sons. He is the author of The Mayor of Mogadishu: A Story of Chaos and Redemption in the Ruins of Somalia (2016).

Reviews for These Are Not Gentle People: A tense and pacy true-crime thriller

Every so often a book comes very close to defining a nation. In this extraordinary, fast-paced and exquisitely written true story, South Africa's brutal and divided past, its complex present and contested future collide in an explosive narrative of murder, race, class and human cruelty. This is In Cold Blood meets Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Believe me, Andrew Harding has given us an instant classic. These Are Not Gentle People is a South African tragedy. Page after page reveals the painful truth, that the sun has set on Mandela's Rainbow Nation . . . The lives of the characters, from the landless and poor blacks, to the white landowners caught in a vortex of fear and oblivion, are a true reflection of South Africa's unfinished business - building a country that belongs to all . . . A gripping and painful read, told with empathy and nuance. These Are Not Gentle People, is an uncomfortable reminder that the past is not over.