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y separately published work icon Does It Hurt To Die single work   novel   thriller  
Issue Details: First known date: 2011... 2011 Does It Hurt To Die
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'A terrorist attack on a church in Cape Town kills twenty people. Jannie de Villiers, a well-known liver transplant surgeon avoids death, but is seriously wounded. Two weeks later while recovering at home, Jannie de Villiers is mysteriously murdered. With too many inexplicable circumstances surrounding her husband’s death Renata takes her four-year-old son Christian to live in Australia.

'As Christian grows up he becomes interested in the circumstances surrounding his father’s death. Using the Internet, he tries to find the reasons why he might have been killed. There is little to satiate his curiosity until one day he discovers a blog site set up by an old anti-apartheid activist. The blog site claims that his father had worked for the Bureau of State Security in the old apartheid government and had therefore been implicated in atrocities against blacks and coloureds. Christian pleads with his mother and returns to Cape Town shortly after his eighteenth birthday. Unbeknown to him his return to South Africa is monitored by the National Intelligence Agency and a white underground Afrikaner supremacist organisation. They both have knowledge of his father’s genetic research on racial profiling and believe that Christian might lead them to a missing folder containing highly sensitive material on chemical and germ warfare.

'Christian discovers the folder buried in the garden of their old house they once lived in. Included in the folder are evidence of the apartheid South African governments’ involvement in a germ and chemical warfare programme and the development of nuclear arms. In a section which has his father’s name at the top of it, Christian finds encrypted genetic research on racial groups. Christian recognises that the encryption has a code not dissimilar to code that he noticed on the back of a photograph of his mother and himself in Adelaide.

'Once it is known that the folder has been discovered Christian and his newly discovered half sister, Isabella, are then pursued by the Afrikaner white supremacist group. Christian and Isabella are taken hostage by the white supremacist group who demand the key to the encrypted genetic research to unlock their father’s research.' (Publisher's blurb)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Sunnybank, Salisbury - Acacia Ridge - Sunnybank area, Brisbane - South & South West, Brisbane, Queensland,: BookPal , 2011 .
      image of person or book cover 5188931976147600971.jpg
      This image has been sourced from Goodreads.com
      Extent: 449p.
      ISBN: 9781742841656
    • Sunnybank Hills, Salisbury - Acacia Ridge - Sunnybank area, Brisbane - South & South West, Brisbane, Queensland,: BookPal , 2013 .
      Extent: 375p.
      Edition info: 2nd edition

Works about this Work

New Australian Fiction Ed Wright , 2012 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 4-5 August 2012; (p. 20)

— Review of Fish-Hair Woman Merlinda Bobis , 2012 single work novel ; Darkness on the Edge of Town Jessie Cole , 2012 single work novel ; Thrill Seekers Edwina Shaw , 2011 single work novel ; Does It Hurt To Die Paul Anderson , 2011 single work novel
Bloody Sunday Deborah Bogle , 2012 single work column
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 16 June 2012; (p. 8-10)
New Australian Fiction Ed Wright , 2012 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 4-5 August 2012; (p. 20)

— Review of Fish-Hair Woman Merlinda Bobis , 2012 single work novel ; Darkness on the Edge of Town Jessie Cole , 2012 single work novel ; Thrill Seekers Edwina Shaw , 2011 single work novel ; Does It Hurt To Die Paul Anderson , 2011 single work novel
Bloody Sunday Deborah Bogle , 2012 single work column
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 16 June 2012; (p. 8-10)
Last amended 6 Apr 2021 10:52:43
Settings:
  • c
    South Africa,
    c
    Southern Africa, Africa,
  • Adelaide, South Australia,
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