Newton has spent all of his life surviving, following a list of rules for self preservation, guidelines passed down through generations of Starkers.

Fourteen-year-old Newton Starker is the last of his line–except for his great-grandmother, Enid, a woman as friendly as a pickled wolverine–and he’s determined to survive. They appear to be cursed: everyone of Starker blood has died after being struck by lightning.

They’ve been chronicled on blogs, profiled on TV and researched by paranormal investigators. One is still to be found and may be alive, a possibility which lends compelling urgency to the investigation.The Starker family is infamous. Post-mortems show signs of long-term abuse and malnutrition, and it is discovered that these children have indeed been missing for years. The boys have been shot with a hunting rifle and their bodies dumped in a skip. In modern Cape Town the police force, reformed after apartheid, is still in need of experienced officers – and that means policemen like Vaughn de Vries, now investigating the killing of two Caucasian teenagers with the aid of his black side-kick, Dan February. I shan't give the game away: readers must make up their own minds.

Which it is – until the very last pages, which I found morally repulsive and in denial of recently established facts. Add to this the complex social questions arising from the South African setting, and it must be a sure-fire gripping read. It is astonishingly well written for a first novel, has a fast-moving narrative and fascinating characters.

The rules of survival book review