The Long Silence of Mario Salviati

by EtiennevanHeerden (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2003

  $3.44

  When Ingi Friedlander travels to Yearsonend in the rugged interior of South Africa to purchase a statue, its eccentric sculptor, Jonty Jack, does not want to sell - he says it was not his creation, but simply appeared miraculously. Ingi decides to stay and try to win Jonty's trust, but soon realises that the townspeople suspect she has come to seek a different treasure - the legendary wagon of gold brought in by defeated Boer soldiers. Gradually she prises open the secrets of the past, secrets of greed, racism and vaulting ambition, whose key lies with the Italian POW Mario Salviati - deaf, dumb and now blind. Watched over by a very earthy angel and long dead humans, Ingi forces a resolution with the past and faces up to her own future.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2002

  $3.44

  When Ingi Friedlander travels to Tallejare in the dry interior of South Africa to purchase a statue, its eccentric sculptor, Jonty Jack, does not want to sell - he says it was not his creation, but appeared one morning as though it had miraculously risen from the ground. As Ingi decides to stay and try to win Jonty's trust, she becomes involved in other quests, as she soon realises that Tallejare is not just a hot, sleepy town, but a world in which stories of love, revenge and greed whirl like dust devils and the past is ever-present. Gradually she realises that the townspeople suspect she has come to seek a different treasure - the legendary wagon of gold brought in by defeated Boer soldiers. But where is it buried? What of the other more macabre cargo that the wagon carried? And what dark secret of the past does deaf and dumb Italian POW, Mario Salviati, have to hide?