The Blood of an Englishman

Here's a bit from The Blood of an Englishman (1980), sixth of James McClure's novels about his Afrikaner police lieutenant Tromp Kramer, and his Zulu sidekick, Sgt. Mickey Zondi:

"`Boss Bradshaw is a tall tree,' Zondi remarked primly, `and thee is saying among my people—'

"`Bullshit,' interrupted Kramer, `you're making this up!'

"They laughed together, then peered over the cars in front of them..."

How refreshingly unsanctimonious, how unpolitcally correct and yet enearingly human is that?  I wrote a few months ago that I knew of nothing else in crime fiction like the Kramer and Zondi books: "The writing sparkles with the wit and concision of the best traditional mysteries even though the subject matter is sometimes as dark as that of the darkest hard-boileds. The social criticism is of a deftness that Stieg Larsson could never have managed if he'd written a thousand books, and the sympathetic eye for character is something like Andrea Camilleri's."

Nothing has changed my mind since. McClure was one of the great originals in crime fiction, a defier of categories, and very much worth reading for crime-fiction-lovers of all stripes.

© Peter Rozovsky 2012