Shadow Country - by Craig Higginson (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In the heart of Zululand, the mystery of a missing young woman is lost in the shadow of iSandlwana, the lion shaped mountain that looms over the residence of the valley captured in the vortex of past legends rising from the piled rock monuments guarding the bones of Zulu and British Soldiers killed in the colonial war.

When the body of a young woman, presumed to be the beautiful Sam Webster, appears briefly on the banks of the flooded Buffalo River, the writer Daniel Hawthorne decides to visit the Websters' luxury lodge perched at the edge of an old battlefield. Under the guise of researching a new novel about his disgraced ancestor, the lepidopterist Lieutenant Charles Hawthorne, who fought in the Battle of iSandlwana, Daniel starts to investigate the reasons for Sam's disappearance. The lines between loyalty and betrayal, love and hate, cowardice and courage, redemption and shame, soon become blurred as Daniel gets closer to the truth.

Written in Craig Higginson's masterful prose, Shadow Country is at once a war novel, a murder mystery, a multi-layered love story and a robust reassertion of what it is to remain human during the most challenging times.

Review Quotes

"Craig Higginson is at the vanguard of the latest and most exciting novelists in South Africa, offering a barometer of the best to be expected from the newest wave of writing in the country." -- Andre Brink, novelist

"An astounding book - that takes us from the azure gleam of a butterfly's wing to the roaring immensity of a Zulu army." -- Hamilton Wende, novelist and CNN reporter

"A phenomenal and deeply affecting story. With immaculate prose, Craig Higginson deftly excavates our histories, both personal and political." -- Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, novelist

"A new novel by Craig Higginson is an event in the literary world. He is an extraordinary talent." -- Margaret von Klemperer, critic

"a beautiful page-turner that sets US on fire and gives us something potent to come home to ... it's a thriller but there's a depth to it which is about being human in a complicated world. It presents an engagement with characters so rich and deep that by the end of the story you feel as though you know them personally, and the final few pages make you dread the imminent absence of them in your life ... a well-crafted monster of a tale that cleaves the messiness of a South African colonial landscape, littered with bloody history and damaged people, as it is, highlighted with a dangerous beauty and a mystery, replete with an unbreakable thread of a red herring. You won't be able to stop until you finish." -- Robyn Sassen, critic

"I'm tempted to make this the shortest review you'll ever read! Buy this book and relish it. It is a rare gem." -- The Star

"An extraordinary book ... [Higginson] writes so beautifully, with so much care, so much integrity and beauty ... it feels spiritually uplifting having finished it ... and that is quite a rare and remarkable achievement, to leave a reader with a feeling of hope." -- Vanessa Levenstein for The Good Book Appreciation Society

About the Author

Craig Higginson is a writer, theatre director and lecturer who lives in Johannesburg. His novels and plays have been published, translated and produced widely internationally and won several prestigious awards. Craig has a PhD in Creative Writing and was recently a recipient of the Hawthornden Foundation Residency, where he will be writing the sequel to his IEB matric set-work novel, The Dream House. The Ghost of Sam Webster is Craig's first novel with Catalyst Press.