Falls the Shadow

By Mike Nicol

Nicol returns with a fast-paced thriller that introduces Captain Zara Dewane. With Falls the Shadow, he presents a character set to become a standout in local crime fiction.

Known among her colleagues as “The Jackal”, Dewane heads the Western Cape’s Internal Crime Unit. Her mandate is both dangerous and simple: she polices the police.

Captain Zara Dewane marks a refreshing departure for the genre. She is a single mother who battles an uncooperative ex-husband. Amid these pressures, she finds her only solace kayaking the open ocean off the Cape Peninsula. This personal dimension gives Falls the Shadow emotional depth alongside its procedural intensity.

The heart of the state’s fractured authority

In Falls the Shadow, a murder-suicide by a police constable sets the plot in motion. The incident exposes a stash of weapons in a backyard shed. Investigators find Russian automatics, handguns and 9 mm.

Dewane pulls at a loose thread during her investigation. That thread threatens to unravel the police hierarchy. It exposes a syndicate that runs guns stolen from the police armoury to gangsters. The money trail runs deep. It implicates political bosses and pits Dewane against a ruthless enemy. Through this escalating conflict, Falls the Shadow situates crime within the fault lines of state power.

Nicol, a veteran journalist and creative writing teacher, sees his work as more than entertainment.

My interest is in recording history. This forms part of my project to write a fictional history of the years since democracy in 1994.

His previous successful series, the Mace Bishop series and the Fish & Vicki series, explored private security and private investigators. However, Falls the Shadow moves directly into the heart of the state’s fractured authority. In doing so, it shifts the lens from private actors to institutional power.

This time, the author decided to use a cop who copped the cops. It’s a major departure into new territory. The creation of Dewane signals a deliberate expansion of his fictional universe.

I have long been an avid fan of Mike Nicol’s work, so I am thrilled to be publishing the first novel in this major new series. Falls the Shadow is crime writing at its finest – sharp, fast-paced and deeply relevant.

– Andrea Nattrass, Publisher at Pan Macmillan South Africa

About the author

Mike Nicol is a prolific author, creative writing teacher, journalist, and editor. Falls the Shadow follows the success of nine novels across his two previous crime series, The Bishop Series and The Fish and Vicki Series. Publishers also released those novels internationally, further cementing Nicol’s reputation in contemporary crime fiction.