White shadow

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Weißer Schatten (original title in Afrikaans : Onsigbaar ) is a crime novel by the South African writer Deon Meyer from 2007. The German translation by Ulrich Hoffmann was published by Rütten & Loening in 2008 and came third in the International category of the German Crime Prize the following year .

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Jeannette Louw, the owner of the personal protection agency Body Armor , classifies her bodyguards into two categories: the "gorillas", impressive muscular men for the show effect, and the "ghosts", the professionals who secretly work in the background. Martin Lemmer falls into the second category, and he is her best man. However, after a prison sentence for manslaughter, he is on probation and is difficult to place. Brand consultant Emma le Roux hires Lemmer after she barely escaped an attack by masked strangers. She believes there is a connection with a television report about a radical animal rights activist who is wanted for the murder of poachers in the Kruger National Park . In the photo of the man named Jacobus de Villiers, she claims to have recognized her brother who disappeared 20 years ago. Together with Lemmer she travels to the Lowveld to do research on site.

Inspector Jack Phatudi from the Hoedspruit Revier is extremely uncooperative. He belongs to the Sibashwa tribe, who are making land demands against the national park and have thus drawn the wrath of animal rights activists. Le Roux believes in a plot against her brother, especially when the gamekeeper Frank Wolhuter, who seemed to be able to confirm her suspicions, is murdered. Other evidence points to the radical animal welfare organization HB ( understood by the press as the acronym of Honey Badger , actually the abbreviation for hemoglobin ), which is funded by the billionaire Stef Moller. But in another attack, le Roux is hit by a sniper rifle and seriously injured. Lemmer vows to take revenge for his client. He manages to track down Jacobus, who has gone into hiding, on Moller's property.

Jacobus' report explains the background to his disappearance: 20 years ago, as a young game warrior in the Kruger National Park, he was on the hunt for ivory smugglers when he happened to get caught in a secret military operation that caused the plane of Mozambican President Samora Machel to crash Result. Since then he has been hunted by the perpetrators. When he - contrary to their instructions - made contact with his parents 10 years ago, they were murdered. Forced to live underground and full of guilt, the staunch animal rights activist became more and more radical and turned into a murderer out of anger and despair.

On a remote farm, Lemmer sets a trap for his pursuers and shoots them, not without first having identified their client: Southern Cross Avionics , an armaments company that works closely with the South African army. In Stellenbosch , Lemmer confronts its founder, Quintus Wernich, who, fully aware that he cannot be brought down, admits his involvement in Machel's crash and the murders necessary to cover up the crime. After all, Lemmer negotiates a deal that assures Jacobus and him impunity for their deeds, which, to the displeasure of Inspector Phatudis, is carried out at the highest level. But Lemmer is not satisfied with that. He betrays Wernich to a former bodyguard of Machels, who survived the crash of the presidential plane seriously injured. A few days later, Wernich dies in an alleged case of carjacking . Emma le Roux, on the other hand, wakes up from her coma and visits her bodyguard.

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