At an army base close to Voortrekkerhoogte in Pretoria, at the height of summer and South Africa’s Border War, 18-year-old recruits endure an appalling drill sergeant bent on turning them into killing machines for the sadf. They are sleep deprived, and tension mounts in this group of disparate individuals – boys from all walks of life – expected to function as a unit.

Andrew Howard-Smythe, a surfer from Durban, is the first to notice the giant Afrikaans boy Riejkardt Jurgens, whom he describes as a cross between a heavyweight wrestler and an orangutan. After a particularly gruelling training session on a shooting range, it is Riejkardt who snaps, severely injuring three officers before he is restrained.

The investigation that follows is suspicious right from the start. It turns out that, instead of being prosecuted, Riejkardt will be recruited for a sinister military outfit when his propensity for violence is recognised. Thus, this short, hard-hitting novel tracks the making of a henchman. Written in staccato, pointillist prose, Sons of Mud is deeply poetic and original, and a powerful anti-war manifesto.

" They sit in the doors of the Big Mamma Pumas, feet dangling out, all gung ho. Sometimes you have a bad hair day in the big fat sky come back with holes in you. "First nothing happens, on the border between Namibia and Angola, 1983. A platoon of servicemen at a remote outpost kill time smoking, drinking, grating each other s nerves. Eric draws pictures from girly magazines to amuse his mates while he observes everything around him with a distant eye. They are mere boys, lounging in the waiting room to hell. When hell breaks loose all bets are off, and for Eric there is no excaping the horror of the scores he must settle.Written in hardened yet lyrical prose electrified with heart-stopping lines, "Eric the Brave" is an elegy on boot level that marks the arrival of a remarkable new writer.

When Karl wakes up in a dilapidated house on the outskirts of a South African mining town, he does not know who or where he is, but it’s clear that the townsfolk know him.

Next door lives a ten-year-old boy, Henry. Henry’s father is a violent drug-dealer, his mother helpless in protecting them against him. A gap in the hedge between the two houses allows Henry to slip into Karl’s yard, and Karl and Henry strike up a gentle friendship as glimpses of Karl’s troubled past and his time in the army emerge.

When a drug deal goes wrong, Henry’s mother is killed. His father unceremoniously dumps her body in a disused mineshaft, but a murder investigation ensues after the body is discovered. All is not as it seems, however, and in a powerful climax the real connection between Henry and Karl is revealed.