Contemporary crime fiction has recently been touted as a genre which might represent the ‘new political novel’ in South Africa. This article, however, suggests that the received tropes and glib ethical dismissals inherent in the “hardboiled” form allow little space for social dialogue or depth of field. In contrast, I then explore the mode of “true-crime”: a “subgenre” (Oates, 1999Oates, Joyce Carol.1999. “The Mystery of JonBenét Ramsay.” New York Review of Books [online] (24 June). Available at: http://www.usfca.edu/jco/mysteryofjonbenetramsey/[Google Scholar]) of literary non-fiction that still adopts many conventions of the crime thriller. Via a close reading of Jonny Steinberg's Midlands (2002), Antony Altbeker's Fruit of a Poisoned Tree (2010) and Mandy Wiener's Killing Kebble (2012), I ask if such texts might present an alternative to the aesthetic and ethical limitations of genre fiction.
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Keywords: true-crime, literary non-fiction, genre fiction, contemporary South Africa
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The murder of private investigator Kevin. The murder of the drug dealer Sam Issa, allegedly. 19 M Weiner, Killing Kebble: an underworld exposed.
Creamer Media’s Polity speaks to award winning journalist Mandy Wiener about her book, Killing Kebble: An Underworld Exposed.
In September 2005, one of South Africa’s most prominent mining magnates and businessmen, Brett Kebble, was killed on a quiet suburban street in Johannesburg. The top-level investigation into the case that followed was a tipping point for democratic South Africa, exposing the corrupt relationship between the country’s Chief of Police and Interpol president Jackie Selebi, and suave Mafioso Glenn Agliotti.
A lawless Johannesburg underbelly was revealed – dominated by drug lords, steroid-filled bouncers, an international smuggling syndicate, a shady security unit moonlighting for the police and sinister self-serving sleuths abusing state agencies.
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Indemnified by an agreement struck with the state, Kebble’s killers Mikey Schultz, Nigel McGurk and Fiazel “Kappie” Smith come clean to Wiener in exclusive interviews about the events of the night Kebble was shot dead.
As Wiener unpacks the chilling events, we are given insight into the accounts of the life paths leading the ‘bungling assassins’ to Kebble’s killing. The man accused of orchestrating Kebble’s murder, Agliotti has provided Wiener with exclusive access to his story, as have a cast of other characters whose versions of the events are as yet untold.*
* Killing Kebble: An Underworld Exposed is published by Pan Macmillan South Africa ![]() Comments are closed.
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