231 mm x 152 mm, 416 pages RRP: R170, ISBN 978-1-4152-0044-5 Publication date: 29 April 2008, Category: Fiction "Unforgettable" – Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking Description Leon Labuschagne’s livelihood depends on death. At nineteen, he is a Death Row warder at Maximum Security Prison in Pretoria: a shepherd who cares for the condemned – and a butcher who escorts them to the gallows. In the summer of 1987, after thirty-two men were hanged in two weeks (all real cases), Leon loses control, with tragic results. And now he’s the one facing the death penalty (fiction). Only the most precarious line of legal argument stands between Leon and the gallows. Chasing a defence, his advocate trawls the deepest recesses of life in the Pot – the twilight world of Death Row – in order to determine the effect of multiple executions on his young client. In 1987, 164 people were executed at Maximum Security. Two years later, the last man went to the gallows, after more than four thousand hangings in Pretoria in that century. Shepherds & Butchers portrays legal execution in unprecedented detail, revealing its devastating impact on all those involved. At the same time, it exposes the callous violence on the other side of the noose, where murderers reign. Chris Marnewick’s first novel is a gripping courtroom drama steeped in the factual. Follow LitNet’s online seminar on the death penalty to coincide with the publication of this book. From Shepherds & Butchers, page 202 'Could you please explain the relationship between you and Wessels and how it came about that he asked for you to be his escort?' He came up with the prepared answer. 'I was on duty in C Section and I got to know him well. He was very quiet. We are not supposed to talk to the prisoners but it gets very lonely there, especially in C Section where there are never more than about six or so prisoners. I started talking to him one day when he was writing letters and he talked to me about his family and about the Bible. We also talked about rugby and what we had done at school. I could not understand how someone like him had come to be in there. We became friends, I think. To read on The riveting way in which Chris Marnewick has fused fact and fiction and explored the fine line between human frailty and human cruelty, makes Shepherds & Butchers unforgettable. It never passes judgment even as it reveals the gruesome nature of capital punishment – Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking Public executions stopped because people no longer wanted to watch the barbarity. Chris Marnewick's well-written book mirrors the devastating effect on those who secretly kill their fellow human beings – George Bizos SC, author of Odyssey to Freedom Interview: “Those 32 cases are real — and I don’t feel sorry for the killers. They killed when it was not necessary, for no good reason. But if they were alive, I would fight for them not to be hanged,” says Chris Marnewick in an interview with Margaret von Klemperer in The Witness, 3 June 2008. Read the whole interview.. From the reviews: … unputdownable … I took it one misty Sunday morning, lit a fire, tucked my dachshund Abel into a blanket on my lap, and devoured the story in one day. — Etienne van Heerden, LitNet, 15 May 2008. Read the whole review (in Afrikaans). E-mail us a comment on this book. (Comments may be edited and used on this website.) To buy this book www.exclusivebooks.com www.kalahari.net home   writers   books   contact   buy   rights all content © Umuzi, Random House Struik this website designed and maintained by Guanaco.co.za