Nacht des Verrats

Ruth Weiss:
Nacht des Verrats
Bad Honnef: Horlemann, 2000
235 S. 
ISBN 3-89502-113-X

Ruth Weiss' criminal novel is set in South Africa, 1998. Through an anonymous telephone call the lawyer, Ben Glaser who works for the truth and reconciliation commission finds a clue to a crime committed during the Apartheid period: Caroline Hughes, the daughter of an English missionary couple in Rhodesia, the present Zimbabwe becomes a complete orphan with the death of her parents during the fight for independence. The chief of the Rhodesian secret service Derek Reed-Smyth takes over the guardianship of the 12 years old girl, isolates her from her environment and makes her completely dependent on him. He convinces Caroline of the guilt of the African liberation movement for the death of her parents and trains her as an agent of the secret service in the fight against the Anti-Apartheid movement.

In the 80s the young lady passed on information to her guardian about the black as well as white opposition against Apartheid and therewith helps the Apartheid - regime to essentially hold on longer as in Zimbabwe. The lawyer Ben Glaser, who engaged himself against the Apartheid while a student is also among Caroline's victims as well as the young Boer Dirk her great infertile lover. He is confronted in Glaser's house for the first time with people with other skin colour and other political ideas and he finally fights for the black opposition movement ANC. Caroline falls in love with him, however she is very weak to release herself from her guardian and finally she is also indirectly responsible for Dirk' death.

Weiss' novel shows that the secret service even after the abolition of the Apartheid Regime (1994) remains active behind the scene, so as to overthrow the reconstruction of south Africa and to secure the predominance of the former Elite. Caroline is Smyth-Reeds' right-hand man in the management of an international partially legal operating business conglomerate which influences economic and political decisions in the whole of the Africa continent. Caroline only succeeds to break out from the building of lies which her guardian erected around her after the unexpected encounter with a female police who took care of her shortly after her parents accident. With her help Caroline who is now 32 years old begins to revenge against those who destroyed her life. At the end however her guardian understands and kills her before he himself died in a secret experimental laboratory for artificial drugs.

Ruth Weiss' book is not only on exciting criminal novel which shows the psychological development and change of personality of a young woman who is exposed to subtle manipulation for many years. As a committed journalist who fought long in South Africa and Rhodesia against apartheid, the author can refer to a real background which she knows from personal experience. This is also valid for the history of the outspoken young girl who grows up without racial prejudice and with many black friends . Influenced by her guardian she begins to hate every black and she develops into a reliable as well as deadly weapon of the secret service in the fight against the opposition.

Similarly close to reality is the presentation of the PEP security limited company, the incomprehensive business conglomerate of General Dutoit. It serves the supporters of apartheid to overthrow the peace negotiation between De Klerk and Mandela and influences the activities of the whole African continent through mercenary organisation and manipulation of the secret service with her critic against the advocates of apartheid and their intrigues Ruth Weiss also discloses a motive for the crimes of blacks against blacks which are often presented in the media as tribal conflicts' and typical internal African discussions. In the same way the horrible raid against the mission station which is described in the novel is not traced back to the African independent movement but to black mercenary. It was organised by advocates of apartheid so as to discredit the black Elite as incapable of governing.

The novel offers an exciting example of south African history and politics in the last 20 years in the transition from apartheid to the post-apartheid period. Moreover it becomes clearer that much racial prejudices are to be traced back to demagogy, manipulation and concrete interest of power. In this respect Ruth Weiss' novel also contributes to overcome the colonial view of African and the third world regions.