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.