Zatopek 'Zet' van Heerden, an
Afrikaner former cop, is private detective. He is appointed by the lawyer Hope Beneke to find in less than 7 days a testament bequeathing to the widow Wilna van As the fortune of her husband, Johannes Jacobus Smit. This rich antiquarian was tortured at their home and murdered after the opening of his safe-deposit box and the stealing of its content. van Heerden discovers that "J. J. Smit" was not the person whose papers he carried, and that someone wants to hide his true identity. The plot alternates between the chapters written in the third person and describing the step-by-step investigations, and those written in the first person and detailing the history of the personal life of Zet van Heerden. In parallel, the reader discovers the life of Thobela Mpayipheli, a member of
Umkhonto we Sizwe — the armed wing of
African National Congress — sent to the former
Soviet Union and
East Germany to be trained as an assassin. == Quotation ==