Bloody Harvests

The collision of cultures and religions in the seething city of Johannesburg, South Africa, provides the backdrop for Kunzmann's impressive debut, which teams an incongruous pair of police officers: Harry Mason, a Christian Englishman, and Jacob Tshabalala, a Christian tribesman who knows that the beliefs of his countrymen are not mere superstition. As the two policemen investigate the ritual killing of a young girl whose organs were harvested from her living body, they find themselves on the trail of an albino figure of almost mythic dimensions, who controls a criminal organization (drugs, prostitution, smuggling, etc.) through fear and intimidation. The complex narrative perhaps switches directions too often to briefly follow a minor character or reveal a snatch of Harry or Jacob's traumatic past. Still, the author does a fine job of depicting the city's combustible mix of poverty, ignorance, intolerance and crime and the handful of brave men who seek to douse the flames when that mix ignites. (Dec.)