Chris Marnewick, an advocate and Hillcrest resident who is well known for his novels, has his latest book coming out mid-September. A Sailor’s Honour is the sequel to the novel The Soldier Who Said No.
By Danielle Sheedy
The story follows Pierre De Villiers, who moves to New Zealand to start a new life after much hardship, but just when he gets his life on track, it is turned upside down. His daughter is abducted in Auckland and his brother-in-law’s wife is abducted in Durban. Determined to defend his family, De Villiers is caught in a life or death battle raging from Auckland to Durban and Hamburg.
Chris felt that he needed a character in Shepherds and Butchers to educate the main character in the story (an advocate) about the effect that killing has on a person who kills, even when the killing is justified, and so the character Pierre De Villiers was born. “De Villiers grew on me to a point where I became quite fond of him,” says Chris.
Chris has now published three novels featuring De Villiers. “I already have a plot outline for another Pierre De Villiers novel, but that will have to wait until next year.”
Gavin Foster wrote an article in The Crest some time ago about the case of Clarence Van Buuren, who was executed in 1957 for the murder of Joy Aken in Pinetown. Gavin mentioned that he was thinking of writing a book with Chris. By a bit of luck, the life partner of Daily News journalist Gehri Strauss, who had been at the trial and befriended Van Buuren, contacted Gavin and gave him a suitcase. This contained various photographs, press clippings and notes to do with the Van Buuren case.
Amongst all of this were Gehri’s original notebooks with his record of various interviews with Van Buuren, one of which was done less then one hour before Van Buuren was executed.
Since then, Chris has traced the original trial record and police docket, and has begun to piece together what really happened in the case. He has now written a book, which will be on the shelves in February 2012.