A Song in the Morning - 1986

Summary
Jeez Curwen, a British undercover agent in South Africa reporting on the African National Congress, has received the death penalty for his part in a job in which he should never have been involved. He is incarcerated in the maximum security jail outside Pretoria, awaiting execution.

By the time his son Jack, abandoned by Jeez twenty five years ago, discovers that the British government has washed its hands of his father's case, Jeez has only three weeks to live.

But Jack, though young and untried, is determined to see the father he has never known and set him free.

Extract
He saw the bucket. When he looked up the street he saw there were buckets filled with water in front of each house, each shack, in the wide street.
"Means bad trouble. The water is for the kids to wash the gas out of their faces. If there's going to be trouble everyone leaves water on the street."
"If you don't leave the water out?", Jack asked.
"Then they would be thought of as collaborators and they get the necklace. Hands tied behind their backs, a tyre hung on their shoulders, that's the necklace. They set light to the tyre."

Reviews
"My reading this year has been largely confined to thrillers and novels of adventure. By far the best, by several lengths, was A Song in the Morning by Gerald Seymour. A marvellous thriller. A splendid novel of, and for, our times" SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

"Pitches headlong into the turmoil of present day South Africa. Exciting and entertaining" SUNDAY EXPRESS

"Achieves a resonance beyond the headlines" GUARDIAN

"Enthralling" DAILY MAIL