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Dark Traces
9781946395016
South African Police Warrant Officer Jan Magson works in Cape Town’s Violent Crimes Unit. Still grieving the loss of his wife, he is called to a crime scene just out of town. The pathologist, having discovered that the victim had been hanged before being dumped, remembers a similar recent case. When another body is found, and another girl disappears, Jan and his team find themselves on the hunt for a sadistic serial killer. At the same time, an attempted rapprochement with his estranged son in England does not go well when he refuses to answer his son’s questions on how his mother died. Fighting to hold it together so he can stay on the case, Jan races to find the killer before the body count gets higher.
Paperback
15.95
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Pub Date:
Oct. 2017
Praise For:
Dark Traces
A dark, intriguing, and satisfying tale with strong characters. —Kirkus (Starred Review)
"Dark Traces by Martin Steyn is fascinating and compelling for its unfamiliar—at least, to most American readers—setting, its well-drawn and sympathetic characters, and the totally believable psychopath whose vicious murders are at the center of the plot." — D. R. Meredith, New York Journal of Books
Author: Martin Steyn began writing Stephen King-inspired horror stories in his teens. Given his interest in the darker recesses of human beings, it was probably unavoidable that he would become fascinated by serial killers. After obtaining degrees in Psychology and Criminology, he studied serial killers and profiling. He also wrote seven true crime articles for the Crime Library website. But the dream was always to write fiction, particularly realistic crime fiction. This led to much research into the South African Police Service and its forensic units. In 2014 Donker Spoor was published by LAPA Uitgewers, and was awarded the ATKV-Woordveertjie for Suspense Fiction the following year. In 2017 it will be published in English as Dark Traces. Steyn is the translator for Dark Traces. Steyn prefers to tell the story through the eyes of the detective, that individual with the extraordinary task of finding justice for those whose final chapter ends up being written in a murder docket.