Tsotsi (2005) DVD / a film by Gavin Wood; starring Presley Chenewagae & Jerry Mofokeng; based on the novel by Athol Fugard

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Tsotsi has never known a real home, a real family or even a real name (Tsotsi is a nickname roughly translated as "thief"). An orphan in the Johannesburg townships all his life, much of it spent sleeping at an abandoned construction site, he and his likewise-situated friends get by as common thieves, mugging and robbing (and sometimes murdering) their randomly selected targets. On a solo job one rainy night, Tsotsi burglarizes a woman arriving at her gated home. Acting recklessly, he forces the woman from her car at gunpoint, ultimately shooting her in the stomach before speeding off in the stolen vehicle.

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The amateurish carjacking has netted more than an expensive auto however as only afterwards does Tsotsi realize what else he's escaped with--the woman's infant son. At a loss for what to do, Tsotsi bides his time in hiding, meanwhile discovering just what it means to be responsible for another human being. As the child's unlikely surrogate caretaker, he does his best to keep it nourished, an act involving the coercion of a wet nurse (also at gunpoint). Tsotsi also does his utmost to keep out of sight of hypervigilant authorities--the baby's father is a wealthy, high-ranking city official--who will not only treat him violently if caught, but will help ensure he receives, if not the death penalty, then the severest of sentences. But he knows he can't hide for long, and soon must make the biggest decision of his young life.

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Tsotsi won the oscar for Best Foreign Language Film of 2005, and deservedly so. It exposes the vividly contrasting lifestyles in post-Apartheid South Africa where wealth and poverty make strange, often tragic bedfellows. Even with an overhaul of improvements to the infrastructure of the country, conditions remain devastatingly bad for millions of disadvantaged squalor camp residents, many of whom have AIDS and/or are stuck without a chance. Yet where there is love, there is hope and Tsotsi offers a vision of the kind of redemption available in even the most dire of circumstances. (DVD TSOTSI)

Wake Up Dead: A Thriller / by Roger Smith

When car thieves Disco and Godwynn pull a job on a spiffy-looking Mercedes one sweltering Cape Town night, little do they suspect they're stealing more than just a car, because more than one person is just a tad bit interested in this particular vehicle, its contents and passengers. The victims of the carjacking, Roxy Palmer, a former runway model, and her husband Joe had been on their way to deliver a hefty sum of laundered cash to a local mercenary outfit when the hit came, leaving Joe murdered and Roxy temporarily at a loss for her next move before she makes a daring choice to pursue her husband's murderers and retrieve the money.

Meanwhile, Billy Afrika, a marine just returned from a soldiering stint in Iraq, knows that Roxy knows where the money, his money--funds owed him by his mercenary boss--can be found and will stop at nothing to get it. Just out of jail, a dangerous psychopath named Piper is also looking for something of 'his'--former cellmate Disco. Piper does things with regard for his convenience only, evidenced with his exceedingly bloody break out of prison after which he wastes no time in employing the same murdering tactics to find his former lover. As the action and suspense escalates, so does the tension as all the players involved sense that this cat and mouse game will soon culminate in nothing short of an all out bloodbath.

Hailing from South Africa, Roger Smith has crafted a gripping thrillride of a novel and a worthy follow-up to his breakout debut, the unanimously lauded Mixed Blood. Reminiscent of Elmore Leonard where sequencing, action and violence are at the forefront of the story, Smith handily incorporates enough clever dialogue to match his fast-moving characters and their volatile situations. Don't look for too much depth to the protagonists; most won't be around long enough for you to get a feel for anyway. In addition to the rapid pace and sleek narrative, another element adding texture to the book is the setting. Cape Town is currently a burgeoning metropolis, uniquely located, economically lucrative and as socially diverse as any of its Northern Hemisphere counterparts. It's a hotbed for well-conceived fiction like this to use as a background. (FIC SMITH)