The discovery of a prominent land reform official crucified on a fig tree outside Mbombela draws former intelligence operative Zinhle ‘Zee’ Dlamini back into a world she thought she had left behind—a world of betrayal, buried bones, and the violence of silence.

Zee isn’t just any investigator. She has auditory synaesthesia, hearing the truth in vibrations, memory in melodies, and secrets in sound. However, what starts as a murder investigation quickly becomes a spiritual and political reckoning, and Zee unearths a network of ritualistic killings and land thefts, referred to only as The Cain Circle, a decades-old syndicate disguised as cultural preservation, financed by corruption and shielded by blood oaths.

At the heart of the conspiracy is Sipho Sibeko, a charismatic businessman who has turned prophet and promises to heal communities with ‘ancestral rituals’ but erases names, witnesses, and whole villages instead. Uncovering forgotten graves and long-buried testimonies, Zee has to deal with corrupt politicians, a compromised clergy, and a digital war fought by her unlikely ally, Amahle Dlamini, a brilliant young hacker whose past is entwined with Zee's in ways that are both surprising and unexpected.

When Zee learns that her father’s name is in the Cain ledger, inscribed as a witness and traitor, she must face Sipho and the shadow of the state-sanctioned silence that once swallowed up her family.

With time running out and witnesses about to be killed, Zee leads a counter-ritual of truth, returning to the land with the names of the forgotten and a choir of survivors to speak.

The first novel in the Echoes of Justice series, SILENCE IN MBOMBELA, blends psychological suspense, spiritual mystery, and political intrigue to tell a tale about land, legacy, and the price of naming the dead.

Ashes of the Land