CRIME LORDS:-  The ongoing scourge of Southern Africa. A professional crime syndicate up against the elite Scorpions.

Crime-ridden South Africa and its heart Johannesburg, the ‘golden’ city. It’s 2001 and the story concerns a sophisticated crime syndicate comprising former South African Police members and ex-soldiers of Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK), whose tentacles spread into Mozambique and Botswana. Heading the ring are Lodewyk ‘Sakkie’ Hoorn, a former SA police and intelligence officer, and Thomas Dandala, an ex-MK commander. It functions in four main fields: car hijackings and their sale and exportation, cash-in-transit heists, narcotic drug importation and distribution, and the trafficking of young girls into sex slavery.
In Johannesburg an officer of the elite Scorpions crime-fighting unit, Colonel Mike Bester, while overseeing the search for a young white girl abducted from a busy shopping mall, stumbles upon a curious account by a Zimbabwean drug pusher about a particular group of narcotics smugglers operating between South Africa and Mozambique. Unable to make sense of the puzzle, Bester calls on a former contact, Trevor Lawson, an ex-member of the B.S.A. Police in Rhodesia, for assistance.  By way of skilled deduction and unorthodox methods, the smugglers are pinpointed and the chase moves to the ancient port of Beira.
Coincidentally, an independent enquiry by dedicated SAPS crime intelligence detectives is underway into a report by an inquisitive neighbour of suspicious goings-on at an up-market residence in Johannesburg. Little do the investigating forces realize that ‘all roads lead to Rome.’ The syndicate’s activities, the investigations and the pursuits overlap and interweave as the momentum builds to a series of explosive climaxes.
The book is a disturbing expose of the extent of organised criminal activity and corruption in Southern Africa, and the depths to which degeneration and malignity are plunging.

Reviews:

A few days ago I finished reading your excellent novel CRIME LORDS. I shall always be grateful for receiving a copy. Your story has all the hallmarks of a best seller. I found it so gripping and such a page-turner that I had to read the entire second half in one sitting, way beyond my bedtime. I simply could not put it down.
I started off as a reluctant reader. I tried twice to get into the story, but found the beginning very rough and too much like today’s newspaper stories, mostly on unspeakable violence, crime and fraud, that turn my stomach. However, once I did get into it several weeks later, I was completely captivated. Your compassion that you show so vividly in the powerful characters who are completely dedicated to eradicating that scourge in our society, fills one with hope. The ending is uplifting and I feel that there is a real possibility that success could be achieved in the way you described. The timing of the book is perfect. It takes up the cause where the media leave off.
I must also commend you on the educational value of the text. The teaching about aspects of our country and our people is unusual for a novel of that genre. The part that stands out in my mind is the detailed insight that you give of the methods, the thinking, the organization and the commitment of the people in the police force.
In a word, your book has given my vision of our country’s future a great fillip.
May you have great success in the dissemination of such a fine story. Everybody, here and abroad, should read it.

Wim Ahlers.
Author.

AVOIDING PARANOIA

Anyone who enjoys a conspiracy theory will get a kick out of this book. My curiosity was aroused by the suggestion of corrupt links between criminals and police.
Crime has affected so many people in this country that it is a tender subject, bound to arouse heated reactions. For this reason, a descent into the paranoia trap is virtually guaranteed for the unwary author.
Macaskill deftly negotiates this obvious pitfall, weaving a cogent plot filled with credible characters who wade through the mire to combat the pervasive evil.
Cynics may deem such a scenario unrealistic. But somebody has to take up the cudgels, and what’s wrong with a bit of heroism? It certainly never killed a good tale.
There is no attempt to downplay the extent of criminality. To the contrary, the book is faithful in its reflection of news events over recent years to the necessary point of overwhelming…
Let’s hope the next offering still manages a true report of an extreme situation without falling prey to the common South African affliction of arrogant preachiness.
There may be too much detail on, for instance, drug smuggling, and the writer needs to tackle his undertaking somewhat less seriously.
Probably the biggest problem will be getting people overseas to cope with so much local flavour.

NORMAN SHEPPARD - THE CITIZEN: 7th DECEMBER 2006