ZULU by Caryl Ferey

 Finished Tu 5/17/22

This is a new trade paperback that I got on Amazon after seeing the film. The movie stars Orlando Bloom and Forest Whitaker and is set in Capetown, South Africa. The idea that a pharmaceutical company would collude with a militant group to develop a drug that was specifically designed to kill blacks. 

Two white women are found horribly beaten and murdered. During the course of the investigation the detectives learn of this drug to undermine the black population of the country. 

I really enjoyed the look into a society that is run to promote apartheid which means 'apart' and 'separate development'. It's the American 'Jim Crow' on steroids. 

From Publishers Weekly.com:

"Readers should be prepared for graphic scenes of shocking violence in Férey's hard-hitting procedural, which won France's Grand Prix for Best Crime Novel. Ali Neuman, the chief of the Cape Town police crime unit, investigates the murder of 18-year-old Nicole Wiese, found one morning in the South African city's botanical gardens with her skull crushed in. Since the victim's father was a member of the Springboks rugby team that won the world championship in 1995, the case attracts heavy press coverage. The trail leads Neuman to an extraordinarily brutal narcotics gang with links to a former apartheid official. The good guys don't walk away from their encounters with the bad guys unscathed. This is a welcome addition to the growing ranks of crime books set in South Africa—powerful and unflinching in its portrayal of evil both mindless and calculating." 

From Kirkus Reviews.com:

"A crime novel set in post-apartheid South Africa, and the winner of the French Grand Prix for Best Crime Novel of 2008.

As head of the Crime Unit, Ali Neuman has one of the most dangerous jobs in Cape Town. The fact that he is a black man investigating blacks, mulattos and whites doesn’t make it any easier. When a white girl from a prominent family turns up dead, Neuman and his partners, Dan Fletcher and Brian Epkeen, are thrown into the most dangerous and important case of their lives. Their investigation leads them into the dark underbelly of Cape Town’s townships—and eventually to drug dealers, gangs and powerful white men who manipulate blacks on society’s lowest rung. The closer these three policemen get to the truth, the more their lives—and the lives of the ones they love—are in danger. As the bodies pile up, the novel masterfully depicts the abject poverty of Cape Town’s slums and the desperation of the townships’ residents, most of whom turn to drugs, gang activity, prostitution or some combination of the three. The novel, brutally honest, at times violent and grotesque, is both a scathing commentary on South African current affairs and a powerful tribute to those who put their lives on the line to make things right.

A horrifying, eye-opening thriller."

I enjoyed the book and I would read more by this author. I would really like to find a non-fiction book about how apartheid ruled the land.