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​‘ My name is Frankie Elkin and finding missing people is what I do. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never bothered to care, I start looking. For no money, no recognition, and most of the time, no help.’ This is the protagonist of Lisa Gardner’s new novel ‘One step too far’ and we are about to embark on a journey of terrifying reality.
Frankie, middle aged white woman, recovering alcoholic, loner, has once again earmarked a missing person and she’s making plans to join the search team.  She has a talent for finding missing persons – it makes her put one step in front of the other on any given day. Her success rate is impressive (even if they were mostly bodies) but it is her empathy for the families of these people that spurs her to search ‘cold’ cases.
Timothy O’ Day is one such case. Five years since he was lost in the mountains after his bachelor party camping trip. There is no closure in this case and his father and three of his friends who were with him on the fateful night , Scott, Neil and Miguel, are once again heading to the mountains for yet another annual foray. With canine searcher Daisy, her handler Luciana, local expert Nemeth and volunteer Bigfoot Bob, dad Martin O’Day has gathered an experienced team for this final search. And the very inexperienced Frankie joins it. The resulting journey is well – hang on to your hat - chilling, visceral and gut-wrenching.
It is clear that Gardner is a seasoned hiker. I learnt an enormous amount about safety measures, what you pack, how to stay alive, rules of the hiking fraternity and so much more – it makes for fascinating reading and Gardner is a clever guide. Opening preparations alert Frankie as to the emotional undercurrents of the party but all seems fairly stable as Nemeth sets out on the path. This is a gruelling hike as we move into the mountains of the Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming to a fictional destination - Devil’s Canyon. And the key is in the devil … I walked with them, felt their fears, held my breath and wept with the frustrating failures. Suffice to say Gardner has produced an unpredictable page turner which will most certainly have your nails bitten down to the quick.  
When nature’s agenda for protecting its own comes up against human manipulation the battle begins.  Step by excruciating step the secrets of the mountain are revealed and, as the hunters face one setback after another, when food goes missing, ugly screams are heard at night and no seeming answers they slowly realise that they have become the prey and the game is on…

​understanding of others. If only – and this was the big one - they could express themselves and their beliefs so articulately and with such passion as Shanti. Shanti is the young woman, the protagonist of this book who at the tender age of fourteen makes the decision, in order to avoid a forced and arranged marriage, to sail from the Madras Presidency in India to Port Natal in South Africa to become an indentured labourer in the British-owned sugarcane plantations. A reminder, she was fourteen years old. She was alone. And this was 1916. Imagine! Just imagine, apart from anything else, the interminable sea voyage shared with the hope, struggling and suffering of a shipful of others.
There is a speech, a full page long, that Shanti gives towards the end of the book, that is nothing short of sizzling. To an unsympathetic, largely hostile audience, she delivers a heartfelt and impassioned cry, a demand for justice, rights and understanding (and all this in English, not her mother tongue), that had me punching the air in her honour. If only, I thought, all young women could find the words to express themselves so powerfully and clearly.
To my mind, Joanne Joseph’s book epitomises power and passion. It seems to me that the passion she had for writing this story – a collective of so many people’s narratives, and one that for her was triggered by an internet image she found of her maternal great-grandmother, was what led her to undergo a total immersion into the ‘rabbit-holes’ of her family’s history as well as the deep waters of specialist academics who have written extensively on Indian indenture in the 19th century. In turn the passion gave her the power to piece together this layered story in way that makes it so accessible.  It also enabled her to breathe power and passion into Shanti making her both impressive and inspirational. If only young women, then and now, could have half as much confidence and clout. If ever I were looking for a speech writer Joanne Joseph would be top of my list.

​of real women known to the author’. Which was a bit of a shock. The things that protagonist Obianuju goes through at the hands of her dapper, church-going husband shouldn’t happen to…well, just shouldn’t happen. And what she tolerates from the mouth of her traditional and unbending mother just shouldn’t be said. That it all takes place between 1978 and 1999 makes you hope that perhaps these things don’t happen anymore. But hey…lets look at our own GBV statistics and opinions on what constitutes a woman’s role before we start pointing fingers.
The years covered mean that it post-dates the Biafran war (1967-1970) that if you read Chimamanda Adichi’s ‘alf of a Yellow Sun. you may remember was harrowingly central. But the stain of war, any war, lingers and the Biafran conflict crops up as one of the themes in this book. Interestingly Aiwanose participated in Adichi’s Purple Hibiscus Trust Writing Workshop. So who knows what influences or not may have been at play, but this book feels very much her own and based on what she has witnessed.
One of the other relationship themes that runs through ‘Become a Woman’ is that of female friends. Well in the book ‘Wahala’, also a debut novel by Anglo-Nigerian writer Nikki May, a group of ‘inseparable mixed-race friends’ living in London take the leading roles. So it’s full-on female. And set in the present day, it’s about as contemporary as it gets, ‘Boo tapped her nails on the steel of her laptop’, and life is a million miles from decades-past downtown Lagos. ‘… Simi spent Saturday afternoon in the Cowshed spa… three hours – salt scrub, reflexology, deep tissue massage and hydro-gel mask facial.’ But it’s also laced with Nigerian nostalgia ‘You’re such a coconut. I’ll have amala with ogbomo and assorted meat.’ ‘Jollof rice and chicken for me,’ said Ronke. She couldn’t bring herself to order pounded yam in front of skinny, glamourous Isobel.’ And then there’s the inimitable dialogue, ‘Na your choice be dat. I go make you handbag and headwrap. The aso ebi be like entry ticket – it shows you belong.’
What the two books have in common is that they are both indicators of the painful and poignant world of women – but unlike ‘Become a woman’, ‘Wahala’ is wickedly, if agonizingly, funny.
The reason for talking about them in the same breath so to speak, is that they are both so very much  ‘of Nigeria’ – and both offer such female insight. In addition they are a testimony to how culture can impact your life as a woman – then as now, and wherever you are.
Oh, and while there’s no glossary at the back of ‘Wahala’, there are some recipes to add flavour, including ‘Ronke’s Jollof Rice’.

​ strong, hard working role model mother who ploughed, sewed, cooked and cared diligently and lovingly for her large family. Pindiwe was the last born of seven children. She reflects on what should have been an idyllic rural life – eating vegetables fresh from the fields, cows available to be slaughtered in celebration, surrounded by mountains and rivers. But the shadow of political injustice was long and heavy. Many of her siblings ended up spending more time in exile or in prison than at home and as a family at one point they escaped to Lesotho. They paid a high price for their beliefs.
Some of her siblings fell victim to alcohol, Aids and abuse – and her father, despite his stature and values, became a philanderer. All of this made things considerably worse for her uncomplaining mother who, as Pindiwe laments, never got to enjoy the fruits of her children becoming successful citizens.
It’s a tough story, and as I read it, I was conscious of its echo, not just of the mountains, but in the stories I’ve heard snatches of from so many people who lived and grew up in the apartheid era. Although she writes little about her own journey, other than touching on it here and there, the book is also a vehicle for her to express her own feelings about family and about the social situation, ills and solutions, in general.
It is undoubtedly a challenge to write such a book – dredging back through unhappy memories and troubled times, but its also an opportunity to reflect on and express gratitude for love and loyalty. As the youngest, and one of the few surviving members of the family, it seems appropriate that it was Pindiwe who chose to pull together this family memoir for which I applaud her.  It must be said though that not all ‘unsung champions’ to whom she pays tribute, would have the resources, strength, support and skill to undertake such a task, but she has certainly set an example. And even if they never get into print, one hopes it would be healing for others who follow it.
Finally she talks of the living monument she hopes to create in her home village as well as the Bhelekazi Foundation she plans to set up to give back to her community. Wishing her well and watching this space​.

tell this story, and getting there was a slow and painful journey.
Liz McGregor is a journalist and an author, so constructing material into a logical sequence is her craft, but one can only imagine in this case, also an emotional challenge. She opens the book with the scattering of her mother’s ashes. The whole family had gathered for the memorable occasion. Two days later, their father was dead. The subsequent tale she tells weaves from the grisly details of the murder itself, to the trial, to the verdict and through her attempt to get her life back after the horror of it all. She tells how she subsequently writes a book on rugby, finds love, suffers serious injuries, surgery and crippling pain following a freak accident involving a recovering alcoholic. She seeks out help as grief and rage come back to haunt her, she is coming apart – ‘but I have always written my way out of despair’ she says. And this book would be the proof.
In it she also looks back over her father’s life and his dynamic, unorthodox approach to it. She looks into his ancestry and visits Scotland. She reflects back on her own life and significant times with him. The turning point came in January 2018 she says, ‘I steel myself to start my exploration of Cecil Thomas’s life, even though the very thought of it sets my nerves jangling, exacerbated by an ongoing insomnia.’ The exploration is intense. Obsessive. It takes her to Tulbagh. It takes her deep into the dark and murky world of prison, the Numbers gangs and the slippery field of restorative justice. She is determined to meet her father’s killer face to face to finally find out the truth of why he did it, so long after the litany of maddening lies that were heard in court.
The prison system throws up obstruction and cul de sacs, and then she meets Chris Malgas – ‘an anomalous figure in fatigues with a soldierly bearing’ who knows his way around the innards of incarceration. Together with Alan, her now husband, Chris supports her through this quest that she describes as ‘to hear my father’s voice one more time.’ To hear him ‘describing the events leading to his death’. She will never hear that, and ultimately will never know the truth. But what she has unearthed along the way, is an extraordinarily revealing account of one good man’s life, beliefs and finally his murder – one of so many thousand that happen every year in this complex country. Sadly, it makes for compelling reading. ​

​THE LAST CHECKMATE by Gabriella SAAB published by William Morrow (fiction)
Daughters of the Labyrinth by Ruth Padel published by Corsair (fiction)
The Dressmakers of Auschwitz by Lucy Adlington published by Hodder&Stoughton (non-fiction)
Reviewed by Beryl Eichenberger
There is a plethora of Holocaust books, some considered good, some considered tasteless, others criticised, lambasted and suggestive of too much fiction thus undermining the horror of the time. While reviewers may be subjective, their own or their family history may well inform their views, in the end the opinion rests with the reader; how they assimilate and use the information.
In terms of fiction novelists may embroider their stories to make facts palatable, but the blend of fact, its accuracy and the extensive research required to marry it with fiction should never underplay reality. What is apparent, now that Holocaust survivors are passing on, is that there is a younger generation seeking to find and tell these stories.  We know that many survivors could not speak about their experiences and their stories so often died with them. There is a curiosity and passion that this younger generation display in wanting to honour those who survived, thus ensuring that the world will not forget.
Reading Holocaust novels is to read the pain etched on the pages, particularly if there is a personal connection. So please forgive me if I try to take a pragmatic view, a neutral stance on your reading choices. In keeping the memory alive, we are reminding the public of a horror that should NEVER happen again.  Sadly war and genocide are a fact of life  – it is happening as we speak; we can never deny this. Books on the subject form the platform for knowledge; can perhaps be the change,but more than anything they are a legacy for the future.
Yom HaShoah or World Holocaust Day is commemorated annually on April 28 and in the light of those candles of memory I wanted to talk briefly about three books read recently. Each has a special link to the Holocaust. From skills that could keep you alive, to haunting memories and secrets affecting a family history in present day; these stories demonstrate the strength of the human spirit.
Gabriella Saab’s debut novel “The Last Checkmate’ is a powerful story of surviving Auschwitz. A young Polish resistance worker Maria Florkowska is interned in Auschwitz but she is a master chess player and it is this that keeps her alive. Each game she plays with the sadistic camp deputy, who she discovers deliberately oversaw her family’s slaughter, could be her last. Her game plan for revenge moves the pieces of the story to a climactic close after liberation. The measured writing does not spare the agonies of prisoners, what people had to do to survive and what liberation brought with it. We are drawn into the suffering of Father Kolbe, who sacrificed his own life to save a prisoner and in 1982 was elevated to sainthood. It is a complex story told in vivid prose. Saab’s grasp of historical fiction melds her characters with those that existed and her research is exemplary. Read the Author’s notes as they shed light on the depth of her research. This is an author to watch.
Ruth Padel is a British poet and author and her writing has a rhythm that reflects this. Evocative, haunting and echoing lines paint a picture of buried secrets on Crete, an island full of its own myths and legends. ‘Daughters of the Labyrinth’ is set in the present but it explores the depth of buried memories, of stories never told, loss and denial. Sixty-something international artist Ri was born in Crete, brought up as a Christian but left for London in her 20s. Sponsored by the family friend Mr Michael she studied art and has made a successful career, something her Cretan mother Sophia seems always to resent.  After the tragic death of her Jewish husband David, the news her mother is very ill draws her back to the island. It is her father who starts telling Ri her mother Sophia’s real story, one that saw her hidden throughout the war and her community driven from Crete. Coming to grips with this answers many questions and confirms instincts but brings with it confusion and finally peace. Unfurling the story is a walk through life’s labyrinth and Padel’s writing evokes the many moods and colours of this journey.  Padel asks the question: How well do we know our own family…something we may well ask ourselves. A rich, satisfying and thoughtful novel.
I grew up in the ‘rag trade’ so fashion was part of my life for many years. When I watched an interview with author Lucy Adlington on her book ‘The Dressmakers of Auschwitz’ I was intrigued – who would have thought of a fashion salon in the heart of one of the most notorious concentration camps. This is the true story of the women who sewed to survive and it is quite remarkable. Adlington’s diverse sources, her tenacity in finding the truth and being able to interview some of the last surviving seamstresses brings to life what became known as the Upper Tailoring Studio. Started by the very fashion conscious Hedwig Höss, wife of the infamous Rudolf Höss at the height of the Holocaust, twenty-five, mostly Jewish young inmates sewed garments for the Nazi élite. The hypocrisy of being beautifully dressed while prisoners were stripped to humiliating nudity cannot be lost on the reader. The friendships these women forged lasted long after the war and Adlington weaves this little known story within the context of the Nazi policies; the greed, exploitation and cruelty which drove the regime. It is a fascinating piece of history meticulously written and researched.    
These are but a tiny sliver of what is available but are chapters of the legacy library that we must continue building.