Aanspreeklikheid

Jaco Diehl has nine little-noticed books behind him and is writing another, about Joseph Fouché, Napoleon's police chief, from a rented flat in Hermanus, a place where he feels like a passing visitor. When killings take place in his building, he slides from bystander into the violence himself, and his writing begins to fall away. He tells everything in the first person, and how far to trust him is never clear. Diehl keeps moving so as not to look back: at a childhood of being bullied, at national service and the paratroop selection he failed, at a life spent never fitting in. He keeps his friend Peet, the woman Adèle and the detective Jansen at arm's length. Around him lies a country soaked in crime and old wounds, where healing trauma has become a business.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

224 pages in the original

Genres

Crime (assigned by AI)

Set in

South Africa

First published

2020 by Human & Rousseau

Author's age

53 when first published

ISBN

9780798178334 (original)