Review of The Steam Pig by James McClure (1971, Soho Press)

Except for the incompetence of a local undertaker, Teresa Le Roux’s murder by a bicycle spoke thrust into her heart through her armpit would have never been discovered.  It’s a favoured method of execution amongst Bantu gangs and it’s exceptional for it to be used on a white woman.  Lieutenant ‘Tromp’ Kramer of Trekkersburg, a small town to the north of Durban, is called to the undertakers, which doubles as a morgue.  He promptly sets up an investigation, calling on the services of Sergeant Mickey Zondi, a Bantu officer in a strictly apartheid police force.  Kramer and Zondi form a formidable partnership, with a healthy mix of friendship and respect, but nevertheless perform their boss and kaffir roles.  It appears that Le Roux was a young, mousy music teacher who led a quiet, reclusive life.  But the lack of a past and a few oddities in her clothing raise Kramer’s suspicions further.  As Kramer and Zondi slowly discover information about Le Roux, and try to discover why a Bantu gang might want her dead, they come to hear of the steam pig, a figure so feared that no-one will talk about him.

Published in 1971 and winner of the CWA Gold Dagger, The Steam Pig is a police procedural set in South Africa.  The book is noted for its depiction of apartheid in South Africa in three respects.  First, its matter of fact depiction of how apartheid was expressed on a daily basis and how it structured social relations and led to distinct geographies.  Second, the complex relationship between Afrikaans ‘Tromp’ Kramer and his Bantu Sergeant Mickey Zondi, which is infused with asymmetrical power relations but also friendship and respect.  Third, its complex plot that mixes polite white society with Bantu gangs, Indian shopkeepers, and colored families.  Indeed, McClure doesn’t pull any punches in a book that interestingly can be read in different ways -- as an anti-apartheid tale and as an affirmation of the status quo (hence its popularity in South Africa).  The result is an absorbing book with respect to the setting, politics and social relations, and the case that Kramer and Zondi are trying to solve.  A big plus in its telling is the somewhat ambiguous relationship between  Kramer and Zondi and their interaction.  That said, due to the focus on the plot, neither character is that well developed and their back stories are barely explored.  Moreover, the story stuttered at certain points and the end of the tale seemed overly rushed and little over-dramatic and it would have benefitted from an epilogue or a little more explication as to the fallout.  Overall, a fascinating and entertaining tale of South Africa in the early 1970s.

Review of Goshawk Squadron by Derek Robinson (Cassell, 1971)

At 23, Stanley Woolley is old beyond his years, a major in the Royal Flying Corps in charge of a squadron of SE5a biplanes.  Unlike the young pilots he commands, most of whom are from privileged backgrounds, he understands the air war to be as a brutal, squalid and wasteful as the trenches, not a chivalrous, dignified joust between gentlemen.  Through a tough regime of training he tries to equip the pilots with the skills and ruthlessness to survive and to shoot the enemy quite literally in the back.  In turn, they hate him for his seeming lack of ethics, general callousness, and absence of respect.  But Woolley doesn’t care.  He knows that they’ll all be dead within weeks despite his efforts and that their deeds will have had barely a negligible impact on the war.  The only thing they can do is to keep trying to shoot down the Germans before they themselves are killed.  Something that Woolley excels at.

Goshawk Squadron was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1971.  It was criticised by some former RFC pilots who felt it denigrated the memories of those who fought the air war.  Others praised it for showing the true nature of a war that was brutal mass slaughter and it was no different in the air to other services.  Pilots were flying planes made of principally of wood, canvas and wire, and the engines were treated with castor oil to keep them lubricated, the fumes of which acted as a laxative that was countered by alcohol.  Pilots often flew several missions a day traversing two sets of trenches where they were liable to be shot at from both sides, plus sustained anti-air barrages, to face superior planes.  Tensions and fears were high amongst pilots, most of whom had only recently finished school, and they often let off steam in local villages.  Robinson captures the true dark nature of war; it’s brutal realities.  The tale is relatively straightforward, following the men’s exploits and relationships over a few months.  The action sequences are excellent and the opening couple of chapters are amongst the best I’ve read in a while; the writing really alive on the page, laced with dark humour.  It then settles down, becoming a little more mundane.  Whilst some of the men are well drawn and distinctive, others are pretty indistinguishable and under-realised.  And in Woolley he pushes the callous leader, who really believes he is doing the right thing by his men by trying to harden them to be ruthless, to its limits.  Overall, an engaging, well written novel that shows war for what it really is.