The Unfairest Cape

By Cyril Fox

When Gina hangs herself in Warder Steenkamp's coal shed on Robben Island just a week after she was released from Valkenburg Asylum, Dr Moon has no hesitation recorded her end as 'Death by Suicide.'

So begins the fictional biography of Constable James Fox.

James's first occupation is an assistant lightkeeper on the desolate Dassen Island, where he encounters a small but diverse cluster of humanity: Diamond, the battle-worn Zulu labourer and his deaf mute nephew, Isaiah; lightkeeper Alfred Pike, 'Satan's agent at the Cape of Good Hope;' the cook, Mrs Bloxam, with the appearance of the 'rear end of a rhinoceros;' Rowena, the chief lightkeeper's wife who does her worst to seduce the young and impressionable James Fox, and Rex van Staden, a man who hates all dark-skinned people with equal antipathy.

James meets Valerie, a Malay flower seller, and it is love at first sight, but love which is constantly tested by the racist attitudes of family, community and the colonial power.

The young man enlists with the Cape Mounted Police and his first posting is to the infamous Robben Island, a place filled with evil and intrigue: a paedophile ring, a diabolical plan to sell a girl's virginity to the highest bidder and, at the centre of this circle of evil, Mr and Mrs Steenkamp, the chief warder and his disabled sister-wife.

The brutish situation on Robben island unravels a tale of evil and injustice which culminates in the hanging of Gina, the slave-maid in the Steenkamp household.

The novel unlocks far-ranging discussion among the characters about race and racial attitudes, as well as bringing forth views of the time about the role of women in society, but, woven into the fabric of unfairness and oppression, are moments of unselfish love and tenderness, small beacons of light in a sea of darkness.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0BJNBXVS5
• ISBN13: 9798358969445
• Release Date: October 2022
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 262 Pages
• Weight: 0.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.0"