Byleveld: Dossier of a Serial Sleuth

Title: Byleveld. Dossier of a Serial Sleuth
Author: Hanlie Retief
Publisher: Random House Struik
Imprint: Umuzi
Cape Town, South Africa 2011
ISBN 9781415201435 / ISBN 978-1-4152-0143-5
Softcover, 15 x 22 cm, 272 pages, many photographs

Description:

Piet Byleveld is regarded as South Africa's most successful police detective, with a 99% success rate during his career that spanned almost forty years until his retirement in July 2010. While his breakthrough in the Leigh Matthews murder case gave him star status among white South Africans, it was Piet's investigations into serial killings that earned him love and respect among black South Africans. Letters to the media and comments on the internet voiced a plea similar to those that were emblazoned on banners held aloft during protest marches in townships: We want Piet! In a crime-ridden society, Piet became a symbol of honest, effective law enforcement. He was even the inspiration for the character Captain Pote du Toit in Eifsondes, played by Ian Roberts. The longest-serving member of the notorious Brixton Murder and Robbety Unit, Piet was also the only remaining member of the former unit who was still in the police service by the time he retired. During the apartheid years, his close working relationship with his black colleagues gave him the nickname "Piet Kaffir". Byleveld: Dossier of a Serial Sleuth is not a biography; rather, the focus is on Piet's years as a detective and the cases he has been involved in.

Content: Byleveld. Dossier of a Serial Sleuth

Prologue
Sodom in the Drakensberg
From scrawny wimp to seasoned cop
Running with the big dogs
Of gangs and floating ladies
Strangler with a conscience
A taxi ride to death
The Wemmer Pan killer
Jeppe's hammer murderer
Bodies in the water
Sibille: A bolt from the blue
Pied Piper of the mine dumps
Leigh: Twenty-one for just a day
White Elize
Sheldean: Broken butterfly
Epilogue