Feasting with Panthers — Bernard J. Taylor

In Feasting With Panthers, the author of the Terrell Newman murder mysteries presents a true and gripping account of growing up in South Africa and finding himself involved in a murder on his seventeenth birthday. It takes in a wide range of extraordinary characters set against what the author describes as the "unique human and physical geography" of Cape Town, where "a great diversity of ethnic and cultural traditions collide in freewheeling agitation, like disparate atoms in a cosmic meltdown." The narrative deftly moves between moments of profound sadness, high drama and hilarity with a compelling honesty and the narrative drive of a born storyteller, with many acute observations about human nature thrown in.