The second chapter focuses on Mary's childhood with a father who was abusive and an alcoholic, a troubled mother, and two older siblings who died during childhood. The life, experiences and feelings of Mary Turner are the focus of the rest of the novel, which is set in the days, weeks, months and years before the murder. Marston feels snubbed, remaining silent as Mary's body and Dick Turner are both taken away. Denham tells him that unless he has cold, hard facts, he (Denham) isn't interested in hearing anything. Slatter and Denham both regard the farm's assistant manager, Tony Marston, with a degree of contempt, but are nonetheless intrigued when he says he witnessed circumstances that he says might shed some light on the killing. The initial investigation is conducted by a patronizing police inspector called Denham, brought onto the Turner farm by a suspicious but strangely compassionate neighbor named Charlie Slatter. These events include the immediate and painless surrender of her alleged murderer, a black servant named Moses, and the mental disintegration of Mary's husband, Dick.
The first chapter of the novel describes events and circumstances immediately following the discovery of the body of Mary Turner, stabbed to death on her own veranda. Set in the days of apartheid (institutionalized racism), the novel explores themes relating to the effect of apartheid on the day-to-day lives of individuals both black and white, as well as the slow simmering nature of revenge and an individual's need for self-delusion to avoid facing uncomfortable truths. This novel, written almost entirely in the form of an extended flashback, details the mental, spiritual, financial and marital disintegrations of the lives of Dick and Mary Turner, white farmers struggling to make a living off a sun-baked farm in South Africa.
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