THOSE WHO LOVE NIGHT

Furloughed from her job with South Africa’s Department of Justice, attorney Abigail Bukula is free to go to Zimbabwe for some pro bono work that pays only in adventure, danger and unwelcome romance.

Even though attorney Krisj Patel insists that Tony Makumbe, the headline dissident of the Harare Seven, is actually the cousin Abigail never knew she had, she turns down Patel’s request that she come to Zimbabwe to help him win the release of Tony and the other six. But when she pushes back against the decision to dissolve the Directorate of Special Operations, where she’s worked very effectively under advocate Gert Pienaar, Abigail’s offered a promotion to the newly formed Directorate of Priority Crimes on the condition that she take a six-month sabbatical leave starting instantly. Since she’s just been tipped off that her wealthy husband, Robert Mokoapi, is cheating on her with his nubile temp, it suddenly seems like a perfect time to leave him behind and go to Zimbabwe, where she’s soon joined by her old friend, Yudel Gordon, who’s also enjoying some time off from his job at C-Max prison. The road to freeing the Seven, Patel informs her, runs through the good offices of Director Jonas Chunga, of the Central Intelligence Organization. Abigail’s not optimistic about dealing with such a powerful man, but Chunga isn’t what she expected. Obviously swept off his feet by her, he presses her for all sorts of intimacies that leave her wondering where her loyalties lie. When Patel is assassinated, however, Chunga, whose motives are anything but straightforward, becomes her only hope.

Looser and more engaging than Abigail’s debut (The October Killings, 2011, etc.), but just as committed in its anatomy of the unending legacy of apartheid.