Gallows Hill (39 page)
Thank you again to my family and especially to Olivia, Hannah and Emma, my tolerant daughters who, in the interests of self-preservation, learned to cook at an early age.
Thanks to my agent, Isobel Dixon, to my editor, Lynda Gilfillan, who works with such loving precision, to the Jonathan Ball team for a valiant race against the clock.
A woman lies dead in an abandoned shed, but skeletons have lain undisturbed for centuries here at Gallows Hill, where Cape Town’s gibbets once stood.
Police profiler Dr Clare Hart soon discovers that a deadly, more recent secret lies hidden among those long-buried bones. Who was the woman in the green silk dress? Who wanted her dead? Who buried her body among these ancient graves?
“Racy, page-turning stuff that peers into the cracks in Cape Town’s affluent surface.”
Cape Times
on
Like Clockwork
“Margie Orford has nailed it... a book that stays with you, even after the last page is turned.”
Michael Connelly
“Margie Orford is world-class. This is crime writing at its very best.”
Deon Meyer
“Snappy dialogue and meticulous forensic detail”
The Times
, South Africa,
on
Gallows Hill
“Orford plots so brilliantly that to stop reading is as harrowing as to carry on.”
The Telegraph
on
Daddy’s Girl
‘Margie Orford writes with great human insight, with poetic beauty, and always the deep, dark undertow of menace.’
Peter James
“Wonderfully crafted and fully engrossing”
Michael Connelly on
Water Music
THE CLARE HART INVESTIGATIONS
Clare Hart is a former investigative journalist turned profiler with a PhD in femicide. Cerebral and intensely private, she takes the violence meted out to women and children head on, her courage, intelligence and her intimate knowledge of Cape Town her preferred weapons of choice. Clare walks a fine line between the forensic profiling work
she does with the police and her own sense of what kind of justice those who prey on the vulnerable deserve. Less easy for her to navigate is her combative relationship with the volatile police captain Riedwaan Faizal; against her better judgement she keeps letting him back into her bed, just as she keeps working on cases with him.
1.
Daddy’s Girl
The little girl tells herself an hour is not so long to wait, and steps outside. The street is empty. Then she hears the car...
Police Captain Faizal has just been told that his six-year-old daughter has been abducted. And he is not allowed to join the search because his squad think he is the kidnapper.
Investigative journalist Dr Clare Hart is the only one who believes Faizal
is innocent. Together they must evade the police and find his daughter even if it puts all their lives at risk.
Daddy’s Girl
is available
here
.
2.
Like Clockwork
A beautiful young woman has been found murdered on Cape Town’s Seapoint promenade. Now journalist and part-time Police Profiler Dr Clare Hart is being drawn into the web of a brutal serial killer.
As more bodies are discovered, Clare is forced to re-visit memories of the rape of her twin sister and the gang ties that bind Cape Town’s crime rings. Are the murders really linked
to human trafficking, or is the killer just playing sick games with her?
Like Clockwork
is a dark and compelling crime story, which exposes the underbelly of porn and prostitution in today’s South Africa.
Like Clockwork
is available
here
.
3.
Blood Rose
A homeless teenage boy has been gruesomely murdered. Police Profiler Dr Clare Hart is brought into this claustrophobic township in the isolated part of Walvis Bay to work the case. To track down a monster with a taste for young male victims, Clare must enter the world of the desperate street kids who run the rackets of the dock. And Clare welcomes the distraction, a chance to distance
herself from her rocky romance with Police Captain Riedwaan Faizal.
But when Riedwaan arrives to help with the investigation and try to salvage their relationship, it is clear that there is more at stake here than just their feelings. Now their lives and the lives of others are in danger.
Blood Rose
is available
here
.
4.
Gallows Hill
A woman lies dead in an abandoned shed, but skeletons have lain undisturbed for centuries here at Gallows Hill, where Cape Town’s gibbets once stood.
Police profiler Dr Clare Hart soon discovers that a deadly, more recent secret lies hidden among those long-buried bones. Who was the woman in the green silk dress? Who wanted her dead? Who buried her body among these ancient graves?
5.
Water Music
A terrified, frozen child is found close to death on an icy Cape Town mountainside. But no-one reported her missing. Where does she come from? Who does she belong to? Profiler Dr Clare Hart is baffled but when a young woman disappears, Clare sees a frightening pattern beginning to emerge.
Rosa is a gifted but troubled young cellist, and her grandfather is at his wits end. Why
did she walk out of her music school that day? Where has she gone now?
As winter tightens its grip, Clare must find Rosa and unravel her secrets… all the while carrying a secret of her own.
Water Music
is available
here
.
MARGIE ORFORD is a Fulbright Scholar and an award-winning journalist. She is Executive Vice President of South African PEN, and a patron of Rape Crisis.
She has written five Clare Hart novels, and learned many things during her research. A pathologist taught her how to reassemble human remains, a senior ballistics officer taught her how to shoot an AK-47, and the hard-pressed cops working Cape
Town’s gangland gave her an insight into how young, deprived boys are turned into violent men.
Margie Orford has three daughters and lives in Cape Town, where she is a full-time writer of fiction and non-fiction.
We hope you enjoyed this book. We are an independent publisher dedicated to discovering brilliant books, new authors and great storytelling. Please join us at
www.headofzeus.com
and become part of our community of book-lovers.
We will keep you up to date with our latest books, author blogs, special previews, tempting offers, chances to win signed editions and much
more.
If you have any questions, feedback or just want to say hi, please drop us a line on
[email protected]
@HoZ_Books