The bone-dry, dusty South Africa of 2007 and 2014 sets the
scene for this police procedural. The author Paul
Mendelson has been a columnist on topics such as bridge
and
poker, published in British papers and the Financial
Journal; THE FIRST RULE OF SURVIVAL is his first novel.
Tough policeman Vaughn deVries is a white cop in the South
African Police which is changing to reflect a wider spread
of racial backgrounds. Violent crime is regrettably high,
but the dumping of the bodies of two white teenage boys
shocks the nation. Vaughn learns from the medical examiner
that the boys were probably held confined and did not grow
properly, exercise, get enough sun or a good diet. There
is
evidence of ill-treatment. Vaughn is jolted into the past
-
in 2007, three schoolboys were abducted within days of one
another and he was never able to find them. He suspects
that the new victims were among the kidnapped boys.
The trail leads us away from politicking Zulu senior cops
to Vaughn's search of market stalls, vine growing premises
and known offenders' homes. More than one man has to have
been involved. Is this a case of organised child
trafficking, as a prominent psychologist has told the
media, or something close to home? How far would any of
the witnesses go to protect family members, and how well
do
you really know and trust your colleagues? Don February
and
Ben Thambo work under Vaughn but as he strays from his
orders and becomes obsessed with finding the last boy -
who
may be alive - they need to consider their future in the
rainbow force.
The writing style is involving and riveting, with the arid
location firmly to the fore. I was sad to see so many
marriages breaking down, and I noticed that there don't
appear to be any women among the police force. Paul
Mendelson has taken a hard look at South African well-off
society and the kind of people who end up moving there
from
other countries. I will definitely watch out for more of
his fiction and I defy anyone who reads thrillers or crime
to read the first fifty pages of THE FIRST RULE OF
SURVIVAL
and be able to put the book down.
Seven years ago in Cape Town three young white South
African schoolboys were
abducted in broad daylight on three consecutive days. They
were never heard of
again.
Now, a new case for the unpredictable Colonel Vaughn de
Vries casts a light on
the original enquiry; for him, a personal failure which has
haunted him for
those seven years and has cost him his marriage and peace
of mind.
A former British government agent, friend to De Vries,
provides intelligence on
this new case, but is any of it admissible? Struggling in a
mire of departmental
and racial rivalry, De Vries seeks the whole truth and
unravels a complex
history of abuse, deception and murder. Challenging
friends, colleagues and
enemies, De Vries comes to realise he doesn't know who is
which.
Set against the background of Cape Town and the endless,
rolling South African
veld, this chilling thriller reveals layer after layer of
abuse – physical,
political and psychological.
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