"The October Killings"

Wessel Ebersohn is an internationally published author who was born and lives in South Africa.

He applied the Page 69 Test to The October Killings—the first book in a new series marking his return to crime fiction—and reported the following:

Page 69 contains perhaps the key moment in the story. It is here that the two central protagonists meet for the first time. Abigail Bukula, a prosecutor in the South African justice department, has sought out Yudel Gordon, an aging Jewish prison psychologist, because she needs access to a prisoner in C-Max, the region’s maximum security prison.

This meeting sparks an odd-couple relationship in which Abigail’s attractiveness and force of personality combine with Yudel’s intuition and knowledge of the criminal mind. According to Library Journal, “Ebersohn vivdly portrays a divided nation in which a national hero may also be a contract killer – still at large. Highly recommended.”

On the subject of my two central characters: Yudel Gordon appeared in three earlier novels, but the arrival of the South African revolution brought with it the need for a new hero (or heroine) and Abigail Bukula was born. Not that I invented her. Abigail ambushed me while I was busy with other matters. Suddenly she was there, and I knew she belonged with Yudel, not as a lovers, but as an ally.

Learn more about the book and author at Wessel Ebersohn's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue