Andre Brink has now established himself quite firmly as one of South Africa’s leading writers. His last two novels were both nominated for the Booker Prize. A Dry White Season is set in Johannesburg just after the Soweto riots of 1976.

Ben Du Toit is an ordinary, decent, harmless little man, unremarkable in every way, until his basic sense of justice is outraged by the death of a man he has known, Gordon, a loyal friend, is held by the Security Police and his death, after a few weeks detention is put down to suicide.

In the beginning it appears a straightforward matter to Ben, an unfortunate official error that can be explained and put right without much trouble. There is one problem, however, Ben is white, his friend was black. And in the search for the truth he has to challenge the basic assumption, the link between white and right, on which his demented, racist society is founded. With dogged determination he seeks to uncover the truth about Gordon’s death, a mission which results in his discovery that the most insidious enemy in his quest is not outright brutality, but the ordinary decency, goodwill and Christianity of people who fail to acknowledge the evil in their midst.

As the whole infernal machinery of the Security Police turns against him he probes ever deeper layers of experience and awareness, forced as he is to find new definitions for concepts he used to take for granted, love, loyalty responsibility, God.