All would be well in de small South-African town Piemburg if Miss Hazelstone wouldn't have reported the death of her Zulu cook.  Despite Kommandant van Heerden's attempts to cover up the killing she insists that it was she who pulled the trigger, and the kommandant is obliged to go to Jacaranda Park to determine what happened exactly.  He tells konstabel Els to make sure nobody enters the park while he tries to understand the circumstances of the chef's death, and with that order he starts a series of events nobody has under control anymore.

Els vigourously defends the entrance to the park, and almost two dozen dead policemen is the result.  When Els realizes what he did he hides his traces and runs off, leaving a wallet he found nearby.  This leads to the brother of Miss Hazelstone, the Bishop of Barotseland, who is promptly arrested, and he is taken to the police-station were he undergoes a not-so-legal interrogation.  In an inventive trial he is condemned to death by hanging, for the killing of 21 policemen and for all of the bizarre perversities he confessed.

The plot is a tad predictable here and there, and it reminded me of other Sharpe novels, but who cares?  What matters is that all the ingredients are there.  A short-sighted British-loving police kommandant, a trigger-happy konstabel, sexual perversions, juridic perversions even, misunderstandings, stupidity, racism, and events that happily get more and more out of control.  From page one it's clear that everything that was wrong with the South-Africa during the apartheid-era is ready to be used to mock that same system, and the hilareous events will keep tears of laughter roll down your cheecks right until the very last page.