English journalist Walter Burstall gets into a lot of trouble trying to solve the mystery of a sub-editor's suicide in a Durban newspaper office. Martin Johnson shot himself sitting at his desk the day Walter was due to leave South Africa. He's offered the dead man's job. And he takes it. But he couldn't have predicted the dangers he'd face in a nation tormented with racial conflict. Walter becomes infatuated with a Coloured woman who'd been the dead man's lover. Does she have the answers to the mystery? Walter's getting to know too much when a top cop warns him: "You should leave South Africa. Your life's in danger." This novel is set in apartheid South Africa where the author worked on newspapers. The story uncovers a dangerous mix of racism, corruption in politics and big business. And sexual obsessions.