A disturbing, harrowing and really quite shocking story of a crime in South Africa, and the effect it had, and no doubt still has, on the whole community, both black and white. Two young black men are brutally attacked and killed by a group of white farmers. Their subsequent arrest and the trial that followed are described in great detail, as are the repercussions for all involved. I didn’t always find it an easy read as there are so many characters implicated that it was hard at times to distinguish them one from another, but nevertheless this is a minor quibble. It’s a timely and important book, meticulously researched, and a reminder that racism is alive and well in South Africa as well as in the US. Highly recommended.

if you like a good court case then this is for you- I don't and found it boring- sorry! i knew 2 lives were lost without justice being reached which is appalling but its just not my favorite read!

*A big thank-you to Andrew Harding, Quercus Books, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
In January 2016, two young black men are caught on a field near Parys, Free State in South Africa, by a group of around forty white local residents in what was called a pursuit after the attack on a white elderly farmer. The men were beaten, viciously tortured, and died in the wake of their severe injuries. The crowd, while not everybody was active in the physical abuse, did not stop those who were.
The book is an account of what happened to Samuel and Simon, but more importantly it reveals the complicated trial and the mutual dependency of the inhabitants in a relatively small community where people are related by blood or marriage, or by employment.
Mr Harding covers the nuances regarding the justice brought, takes us to the townships where black people live in most appalling conditions, all set against the most beautiful landscape created by a meteor which struck our planet around 2 billion years ago, now called Vredefort Dome.
Some moments were hard to read, like when the names of the victims are mixed or when they are referred to as numbers and letters, not by their names. What a lack of respect!
A shocking and tough read.

These Are Not Gentle People is a true story of a murder that took place in South Africa in 2016. Forty men gathered in a field, successful in capturing two men accused of robbing a fellow farmer. The events over the next two hours are unclear, but it ended with the two thieves rushed to hospital where they died shortly after. In this book, Harding examines the town, the victim's families, and the accused. We go from the field, to the courtroom, looking at race in South Africa, and the motivations for the murder.

Enjoy feels like the wrong word to use to describe this book, but I would definitely call it interesting. This was a case I had never heard of before, and it definitely awakened a range of emotions in me. I was disgusted, I wasn't sure who to trust, and at points, I was just plain confused. The confusion is definitely a feature of the case, it appeared to me that even at the end no one really knew what had happened in the field that night, it was he said vs he said, with farmers turning on one another. But I also felt some of the confusion could be attributed to the book. Part of this was to do with the formating of the review copy I received, but I felt that names were dropped and I kept losing track of who was who. There was a handy guide to the 'cast' at the start, but on an EReader it's not easy to keep flicking back and forth.

One of the things I really appreciated about this book, was the time Andrew Harding spent with the victims' family, particularly Samuel's mother Ruth. A point the book really drives home, it how little the investigation and subsequent trial focused on the victims themselves, Simon Jubeba and Samuel Tjixa, with lawyers often getting the pair confused or treating them as interchangeable. I found the view into the live of Ruth to be somewhat harrowing, no one notified her personally of her son's death, and even when she wanted to travel to find out what happened to him she had to hitch a life, same as when she went to court for the trial. This is in contrast to the wealthy lives of the farmers.

These Are Not Gentle People is marketed as a true story, but how much is true and how much is story is somewhat unknown. The most frustrating thing about this story is how we will likely never know what happened to the two young men. Even the perpetrators that claimed to be telling the truth were clearly trying to save their own skin, everyone was happy to deal what other people had supposedly done, but their own involvement was limited to watching on, or just a punch or a slap. Whatever happened that night, it is clear that there were no innocent bystanders. No one tried to stop what was happening, and even now it is unlikely that anyone is telling the truth.

Overall I enjoyed the political aspects of this book, but I do wonder if it is somewhat exploitative of the case. At times I forgot this was a true story, and that sort of made me feel a little uneasy. Not quite sure how to put my feelings into words, but I think this case needed very delicate handling and this perhaps missed the mark for me.

These Are Not Gentle People is a fast-paced, important work of South African true crime and the case that has defined a nation. Since early 2016 South Africans have become gripped by a trial that has been taking place in the small town of Parys, south of Johannesburg, where are a group of white farmers are accused of murdering two black farmhands. The white farmers say it was a question of self-defence: the two black labourers were threatening them and their families. The black community claim that the farmhands had simply gone to the farm to ask for unpaid wages. The case is a microcosm of the racial, political and financial tensions that are increasingly worrying South Africans, but also a gripping character-driven tale of grief, fear and anger in a small-town community. The truth of what actually happened has been slippery.

Andrew Harding, the BBC's Africa correspondent, lives in Johannesburg. From the moment the murders took place, Andrew has been following this case closely, interviewing everyone involved, from the accused white farmers, to the bereaved family of the black farmhands, to the female Indian magistrate, to the policemen and detectives on the trail of the truth (or not). He has sat through hours of the trial, and has put together a brilliantly kaleidoscopic picture of what might have happened, and who thinks what about it - weaving all these various points of view into an extraordinarily fast-paced work of true crime. All the dialogue is meticulously based on real interviews and yet it reads like a novel. Andrew's powers of description - of landscape, people and place - as well of his sense of a good story, are phenomenal.

As a true crime enthusiast, this was a no-brainer; I knew it would get my full attention as the case is a fascinating but harrowing and terrifying one, however, what I didn't realise was that it would grab me by the throat and refuse to let go. Even some time after finishing it, my memory of it has not diminished. The emotional intelligence, elegance of prose, compassionate handling and determination to portray each side of the story shines through on every page, and I must admit it was also completely riveting and intricately detailed too. It's clear Harding has carried out extensive research into the case and its racial, financial and political complications and the implications for wider society in South Africa. If you enjoy true crime then I cannot recommend this highly enough; it is an absolute must-read which has so much more to it in terms of nuance and depth than merely its page-turning qualities. Many thanks to MacLehose Press for an ARC.

This was a difficult book to read. It is disturbing and heartbreaking. Several times, I forgot that the events I was reading about happened in 2016. This sort of thing doesn't happen now, does it? Yes. Yes, it does. Andrew Harding writes with an even-handedness that I found astonishing. I was waiting for a swing to one side or the other, and that never happened. I think that made the events even more hard to understand. Nevertheless, this book gives an insight into South Africa - good and bad. This should be required reading for everyone.

My thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for an advance copy to review. This review is entirely my own, unbiased, opinion.

In some ways, I think having the author's notes at the end come first would be useful. Harding's stated aim is to enter a variety of perspectives, to give a conflicted cross-section of thought and reaction in South Africa around this case, and he succeeds in this; but at times, as I read, I felt as if the author's sympathy was shifting to those who were least in need of it. This does correct itself with later shifts, but the time spent in the heads of guilty white people is unpleasant; the lack of justice at the end of the case is doubly so, deepening the failure to clearly establish what happened. This is not Harding's fault - he can only chronicle, not judge - but it seems to demand more meditation from the author. At present, the events in the book remain in a nimbus of uncertainty and doubt, soft-edged, differently interpreted, argued over by people with clear agendas. The hard-edged facts - the voice messages, the Whatsapps - are clear and unpleasant, testimony to racist murder, but not enough. The sudden twist at the end - the introduction of a third man - is presented as a possible further unknown thing, a potential justification for the white narrative. What is clear is that torture and murder were done, and that no one was punished. The overall effect of the book, in the weight its methodology gives to the suggestion that there is never just one story, one truth, one perspective, is almost the implication that under such circumstances successful prosecution would be unjust. I don't believe that's so, regardless of what cannot be known. The writer could either make it clear early that he intends to explore this multiplicity of perspectives without judgment, or to provide more meditation at the end; it is an abrupt one, at present, heightened by the sudden appearance of COVID and masks at the last hearing in the last pages.

At dusk, on a warm evening in 2016, a group of forty men gathered in the corner of a dusty field on a farm outside Parys in the Free State. These Are Not Gentle People is the story of that night.
The story tells us what happened next. It is a courtroom drama and an exceptionally thrilling read. I highly recommend it.
Thanks to NetGalley and the author for the opportunity to read this book.

The justice system in South Africa is broken. That is the stark message of this compelling documentary narrative by Andrew Harding. The trial of those involved in the cruel murder of two young black men whose "crime" is not proven in the court evidences the bleak legacy of apartheid culture. Delays in the deliberations of the court (a change of judge, the death of a lawyer, plea bargaining and other incidents) mean that the dead men's fate, whose separate identities seem marginal in this justice system, gets buried in legalese.
Their painful suffering at the hands of a powerful and ruthless white farming community becomes no more than one chapter in the history of the case which gradually loses momentum through delays and detours.
Andrew Harding has researched the event thoroughly and provides a vivid and compassionate account of that agonising night and its long aftermath. Harding seeks to be even-handed; voices that are too often muted are recorded, imagined and dignified by a clear prose that reveals the lingering pain and the quest for healing that animates the dispossessed.

A harrowing story of murder in South Africa, of medical incompetence and of a trial that was hampered by lies, mistakes and a general lack of concern. It's dreadful to see what the mother of one of the murdered young man has to go through and her stoic dignity throughout. This is not easy reading, and left me feeling despairing... A cool rendition of a powerful story.

The story of a shocking true crime which tore a South African community apart. Although this is true crime, Harding’s writing makes it feel almost like a work of fiction as it has such great pace and keeps you turning the page to find out what happens next. I found I was grateful for this as the violence and brutality of the crime is hard to come to terms with as something that not just one, but 40 human beings can do to another.
I found one of the most heartbreaking things was the fact that so many people involved didn’t even bother to differentiate between the two victims, and when researching further I found multiple news articles with incorrect names for the victims - as though they don’t even deserve their own identities after the indignity they have already suffered.
With so much focus on America’s racial tensions at the moment, this is an essential read to show that racism is all too alive even in a country where Apartheid ended over 25years ago. A brutal, compelling read - be prepared to spend a lot of time searching the news for updates after reading this, as it stays with you.

Please note this is a 3.5.

This book pulls no punches, giving a bleak and terrifyingly realistic image of the world of South Africa and the pervasive social issues that have plagued the country ever since colonialism. The reckless violence, anger, and racism that touches every single facet of the country is jarring, and this book lays out in lurid detail the exact way that these issues have affected the country.

The saddest thing in all of this is the fact that there is no justice to be found here for the men who were killed. It is horrific to realise that there are so many people serving their own agendas to a point that there is a complete loss of the point of the investigation- the minutiae of people's lives have taken over the real story here, and it seems unlikely that any court verdict will be able to accomplish real justice.

I think, while the book is well written and follows the action very successfully, but while the story has reached some conclusion, I think the failing is in the fact that a story like this will never feel completely finished. The book does a marvellous job of following something that cannot be appropriately concluded, but it could've gone into more detail as to the racial tensions in South Africa and their full context.