‘Double Cross’ By Tracy Gilpin
Publihed by Black Star Crime. September 2008. ISBN: 978-1-848-45005-9

Dunai Marks has been employed at STOP [Strategies for Targeting Over-Population, an NGO pressure group], for two years, which was, she says, a record, since she’d been fired from almost every job she’d had.  She is now twenty-eight years old, living in Cape Town, South Africa, and came to the organization at the behest of Siobhan Craig, its founder and a social activist.  In the ensuing two years Siobhan had become her friend, family and mentor.  Since Dunai had never known her own mother, the relationship becomes very precious to her.  All the more tragic when she comes into work one morning and finds Siobhan’s dead body.

Dunai [pronounced “Doonie”] becomes determined to find who murdered her dear friend, and is aided in her quest by Bryan Larsen, STOP’s American statistician described as “the perfectionist who brought order to Siobhan’s brilliance,” and Carl Lambrecht, a man “in his mid-thirties, divorced, who had turned to private investigating after leaving the police force.”  No easy task, as Siobhan had been the recipient of a great deal of hate mail and death threats. 

The title reference, aside from the obvious, is also to a ubiquitous item of jewelry comprised of two melded crosses, and its enigmatic significance.  Beyond the well-told story, the book presents a rather frightening picture of the abuse and misogyny to which women are subjected world-wide, something from which for the most part it is more comfortable to avert one’s eyes and collectively look away.  But is the cure for these horrors worse than the disease?  This is a question that Dunai must answer, while protecting herself and her 2-1/2 year old son.

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Gloria Feit

Black Star Crime is a new imprint, launched in the UK in August 2008, whose aim is to bring out five titles every two months, each for the price of 3.99 BPS and none longer than about 256 pages.  This book is an impressive part of that debut.