WHO KILLED PIET BAROL?

Set in South Africa just before the outbreak of WWI this novel continues Richard Mason's international bestseller HISTORY OF A PLEASURE SEEKER.

It's 1913. Piet Barol and his wife, Stacey, are navigating the turbulence and opportunities of colonial South Africa in a quest for comfort and riches. The Land Act has turfed thousands of black families out of their homes and Piet is appalled by their treatment. But after five years of decadent living, Piet and Stacey are short of cash and in need of wood for the furniture business they have founded. So Piet sets off to pursue a fabled tree, a journey which will take him deep into the homelands of the Xhosa clan who believe that the spirits of their ancestors reside in the magical trees. When charm and wit fail, Piet resorts to darker tactics to get what he wants. And this sets off a chain of events that will put him on a collision course with a power greater than any he knows: Mother Nature.

Richard Mason was born in South Africa in 1978 to activist parents who settled in England when he was ten. Brought up and educated in Britain he wrote his first novel, The Drowning People, before going to Oxford. In the intervening years, Richard finished his degree, then set up an educational charity in memory of his sister Kay. The Kay Mason Foundation provides scholarships to disadvantaged South African children, paying for them to attend some of the country's best schools.