About this item
Somewhere on the South African veldt, 1901: At the height of the Boer War, a doctor at a British concentraion camp conducts a series of grim experiments on Boer prisoners. His work ends in chaos, but two children survive: a boy named Benjamin, and a girl named Tessa ... One hundred years later, a disgraced young polce constable is reassigned to the sleepy South African town of Unie, where she makes a terrifying discovery: the body of a young woman, burned beyond recognition. The crime soon leads her into her country's violent past - a past that includes her father, a high-ranking police official under the apartheid regime, and the children left behind in that long ago concentration camp. Michelle Pretorius's epic debut weaves present and past together into a hugely suspenseful, masterfully plotted thriller that calls to mind Lauren Beukes's The Shining Girls and Tana French's The Secret Place.
About the Author
Born and raised in South Africa, Michelle received a B.A. at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein. She has lived in London, New York, and the Midwest and holds an MFA in Fiction Writing from Columbia College Chicago. She is currently a doctoral student in creative writing at Ohio University. More information can be found on her website at www.michellepretorius.com
