In the aftermath of a gruesome child abuse case that has caught the attention of the media, Inspector Benny Griessel struggles to maintain his sobriety in order to bring down a vigilante killer who has won the sympathy of the public.

An antiques dealer robbed and killed, and the only clues are a scrap of blank paper and the unusual weapon used. Now ex-cop Zatopek Zed' van Heerden has fourteen days in which to fill in the blanks in this dead man's pasta past which only seems to begin in 1983.

"At a guest house in the beautiful Franschhoek wine valley, a famous English mathematician is kidnapped and his two bodyguards are killed. It's clearly a professional hit, and the spent shell cases offer a chilling clue: Each is engraved with the head of a spitting cobra. Meanwhile, in Cape Town, a skilled young thief is using his talents to put his sister through college. Then one day he picks the wrong pocket, grabbing the wallet of a young American...

"When a cold case dossier lands on Captain Benny Griessel's desk, he and his partner Vaughn Cupido, fellow member of the Hawks elite police unit in South Africa, reluctantly set to work reviewing the evidence of the disappearance-and possible murder-of ex-cop Johnson Johnson on the world's most luxurious train line. Two fellow travelers might have the answers Griessel and Cupido need-but they too seem to have disappeared into thin air, and the few...

Lemmer, a highly skilled bodyguard with a violent, criminal past, has settled into a quiet life in Loxton, South Africa, where the rural tranquility has helped to calm his explosive temper. When a wealthy farmer asks for his help in smuggling a pair of rare black rhinos out of Zimbabwe (where they are murdered for their horns), he has a hard time saying no. Before he knows it, Lemmer is on a small airplane, zipping across the border, an airsickness...

Early on a May morning in the depth of South Africa's winter, a woman's naked body, washed in bleach, is discovered on a stone wall beside the N2 highway at the top of Sir Lowry's Pass, some thirty-five miles from Cape Town. The local investigation stalls, so the case is referred to Captain Benny Griessel and his colorful partner Vaughn Cupido of the Hawks--the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations. The woman proves to be Alicia Lewis, an...

"Having jeopardized their careers in an unauthorized investigation that threatened to reveal the corruption in South Africa's halls of power, Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido have been demoted from the elite Hawks police unit. While waiting to be transferred from Cape Town to seemingly mundane duty in Stellenbosch, Griessel receives a disturbing, anonymous letter: "I can only trust you and Captain Cupido. There is an adder in our bosom. Be careful...