A coming of age adventure set in 1960s South Africa when it was dangerous to love a revolutionary and a crime for a white girl to love someone black. Deft, impressive writing, evocative of place and time in which political dangers lie hidden like land mines to ambush the unwary. “Someone close to them will inevitably be a police informer,” Dan warned Jane. “See if you can guess who it is. Find out their name. Don’t draw attention to yourself; just don’t get involved in political discussions while you are there!” “She did not get to ask Dan about Marxism and love because the next day at 10 o’clock in the morning, Dan was arrested by Special Branch.” Ruth Hartley is the author of The Shaping of Water, The Tin Heart Gold Mine, When I Was Bad: a memoir, and The Spiral-Bound Notebooks: poems from 1961. www.atypicalbooks.com