Book Review: Red Dust

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Red Dust     Amazon US HC Amazon UK HC Amazon Canada HC
Gillian Slovo
Class/Genre:   Fiction
Norton, Jan 2002, $25.95, 340 pp.

In Smitsrivier, South Africa, anti apartheid activist Ben Hoffman knows he cannot handle this case before the Truth Commission alone as he is ailing and his energy low and ebbing. He asks his former student, New York City prosecutor Sarah Barcant to come home to help him with the amnesty hearing of former local police officer Dirk Hendricks. Ben represents an interested party, Alex Mpondo who was a torture victim of Dirk. Ben also feels this forum will enable the law to get at Dirk's former boss Pieta Muller, who the former believes killed the son of another client back in 1985.

Sarah returns home after fourteen years away as only Ben could get her to come back. As the hearing occurs, Sarah, her dying mentor, Alex, the Ben's other client, and the pleading former cops are facing relatively diverse truths. Though intended to provide closure so that the country can move forward, this particular Truth Commission Hearing will leave no one happy as these "realities" open up new nightmares.

As documented South African police brutally tortured and murdered their opposition in order to maintain apartheid, but now face complex justice. RED DUST provides a close look at the amnesty hearings as the country struggles with the ugliest part of its heritage while trying to forge a better future. The story line is superb due to the characters forced to look at their past actions and the subsequent effects on each one and their loved ones that occurred by their actions. Gillian Slovo provides a tremendous gripping human-interest legal thriller that is unique and deserves an award if justice is to be served.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner