Product Description

A thriller about a British undercover agent in a jail in South Africa awaiting the death penalty and the determination of his son, who was abandoned 25 years earlier, to set him free.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #125767 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 448 pages

From the Publisher
A thrilling classic from a master of the genre.

From the Back Cover
Jack Curwen's father had walked out when he was two. For twenty four years there had been no contact, nothing. Until one day a letter arrives from a South African maximum security jail. It is from Jeez Curwen, his father, now awaiting death by hanging for a crime in which he shouldn't have been involved.

What Jack doesn't know is that Jeez has been working in a British undercover operation for the Intelligence Services. And that the authorities have just washed their hands of him, have hung him out to dry. If he wants to see his father or save him, Jack must somehow penetrate the cloak of silence which shrouds the last twenty years and uncover the traces of a life which Jeez has worked so hard to disguise...

About the Author
Once a reporter for Independent Television News, Gerald Seymour has lived in the West Country for several years. His bestselling novels include Harry’s Game, The Glory Boys, Field of Blood, Killing Ground, A Line in the Sand, Holding the Zero, The Untouchable, Traitor’s Kiss, The Unknown Soldier, and Rat Run.

Customer Reviews

A compelling read
Subterfuge and intrigue abound in this extremely well written book. The plot has you gripped from start to finish. Seymour does well to capture the attention of the reader and playing on their sympathy. Following the plot gave me as a reader a unique insight into South African Aparthied.

As a reader you cannot fail to wonder what direction things will go in.

The story concerns one mans quest to aid his father who faces execution in south africa for his part in a crime which he should have had no part in. Seymour follows closely and captures well the emotions of a young mans determination to save his father.

This book really is a must read

For Jeez
Englishman James "Jeez" Carew is incarcerated in Pretoria Maximum Security Prison awaiting the hangman's rope. Carew was convicted of murder after aiding the escape of four Blacks who pitched a bomb into the Rand Supreme Court in Johannesburg. Isolated and lonely, Jeez sends a letter to his former wife back in the UK. Before he deserted her and his toddler son years before, Carew's name was Curwen.

Jack Curwen, 27, is a junior executive with a demolitions company. He's also Jeez's son. When he learns from his mother that Jeez is soon for South African gallows, a stubborn sense of loyalty propels him to Her Majesty's Foreign and Commonwealth Office. FCO officially tells him there's nothing to be done. However, a sympathetic Whitehall maverick tells Jack that his father is not what he appears to be. And, for the sake of political expediency, the Government and the MI6 mandarins in Century House have decided that Jeez is expendable. Determined to do right by his Old Man, Jack gets some practical advice from a crusty old explosive expert, and flys to Johannesburg. He's going to blast Jeez out of that gaol.

Author Gerald Seymour's fictional worlds are comprised of moral ambiguities; right and wrong come in myriad shades of gray. Therefore, in A SONG IN THE MORNING, it's no surprise that there are "good" and "bad" people on both sides of the line in apartheid South Africa, and all are doing their duty as they see it. But Jack's self-imposed mission is noble - of that the reader has no doubt. Jack's focus enables him to dance around the larger social issues.

Perhaps the most interesting character is Jeez, a steadfast and long-suffering subject in Her Majesty's service, who's come to expect reciprocal loyalty from the London desk jocks who send men into harm's way. But this isn't the old days, and the remnant of Empire is the worse for it.

Seymour's heroes, usually Brits, are invariably ordinary individuals with cores of extraordinary fortitude placed in life or death situations, oftimes against more powerful forces. The fact that they don't usually win a clear-cut victory isn't the point. But that they manage to hold their own is. Perhaps that's the best the Little Guys of the world can hope for.

Good South Africa prison break
As this was written in 1986 and heavily based on South Africa during Apartheid, I almost gave this as miss as 'dated'. The title also didn't inspire me. However, it is well worth a read. Not too long, or drawn out as some of Seymour's novels tend to be. This is a simple story of a son (Jack) attempting to rescue his estranged father (Jeez) from the gallows in a South African gaol. We get the usual anti-heroes and morale dilemma's that are Seymour's traits as well as political conniving in U.K. as they let an agent take the fall, and cover up. We get the usual bureacracy between civil servants, intelligence departments and agencies that keep the tension as the plot with Jack's mission is allowed to progress. Recommended.