It is often thought that Dulcie September, Anton Lubowski and Chris Hani were assassinated by apartheid forces simply because they were freedom fighters. But Evelyn Groenink’s painstaking research, conducted over the past 30 years, shows that they were much more than that: they also stood against arms traders and mafias that had invaded the liberation movements. It was their fight against corruption that cost them their lives.

One of the most explosive revelations in this book concerns the murder of Chris Hani. Groenink reveals how the police buried evidence and how the state’s “brave” star eyewitness in all likelihood hadn’t even been at the murder scene. Beside the fact that Hani is widely revered as the incorruptible fighter who is sorely missed, the mystery of the murder itself still fascinates South Africans too. Was there a wider conspiracy? This book says there was and it substantiates it meticulously, with evidence – inter alia – from the police docket itself.

With regard to the Dulcie September case, as Dulcie’s nephew says in an endorsement of the book, no one has done such thorough research. And certainly no one has, to date, revealed why exactly Dulcie had to die. Until this book, that is. At once murder mystery and personal journey of an investigative journalist, the book speaks to a yearning for the fight against corruption to be successful. Political mafia deals are, after all, still making victims in South Africa: Groenink refers to the Mbombela stadium murder of honest city councillor Jimmy Mohlala in 2010, and the mysterious disappearance in 2017 of South Africa’s “Mr Nuclear” Senti Thobejane.

Nevertheless – which would be important to the reader looking for light at the end of the tunnel – she also notes hope in the strong anti-corruption movement that is growing in South Africa today.

The Unlikely Mr Rogue is the story of the quiet man behind the so-called ‘rogue unit’ at SARS, who has become a lightning rod for so many in politics today.

It takes the reader on a journey – Ivan’s growing up in Merebank, KZN, his politicisation, his friendship with Pravin Gordhan and his running of Operation Vula from Lusaka, reporting to Oliver Tambo. In some ways, the setting up of SARS was Operation Vula revisited. Many of the same operatives were now working for a higher purpose. And this higher purpose, of providing the money to reduce inequality in the state, was a daily mantra for Gordhan, Pillay and others. They really believed in it.

Groenink tells of the early 1990s in Lusaka, of their falling in love, of the insecurity in coming back to the country, and the times when Ivan was in charge of stationery in the bowels of Shell House. This is the story of a good man, an unlikely man, a quiet man, determined to use SARS to fund the post-liberation nation-building, and his downfall at the hands of his enemies and a scurrilous Sunday Times.