MAN ALONE, Mandela's top cop - exposing South Africa's ceaseless sabotage

284pp., colour illus., paperback, Maverick 451, No Place, 2024

ISBN: 9780796197986

In 1996 Nelson Mandela appointed André Lincoln, a former ANC underground operative and intelligence officer, to head the secret Presidential Investigation Task Unit and uncover connections between government and gangsters. In 1998 Lincoln was arrested and accused of working to protect Italian businessman Vita Palazollo, suspected of having links to the Mafia, corrupt police officers and government officials. Lincoln claimed that apartheid-era police framed him to derail the investigations. In 2002 he was convicted of 17 of 47 charges and dismissed from the South African Police Service. He appealed his nine year prison sentence and was acquitted in 2009. He re-entered the police service the following year, was promoted to head the Anti-Gang Unit in the Western Cape in 2018, and retired for health reasons in 2021.

"A gripping, crime, spy and political-scheming thriller, offering a frightening glimpse into the egregious brutality of apartheid security forces and their dark, apparently continuing shenanigans ... Man Alone reads like a who's who at the interface of politics, the underworld and the shadow of South Africa's ugly past." Professor Thuli Madonsela, former Public Protector of South Africa and Social Justice Chair at Stellenbosch University

"Caryn Dolley is, without doubt, the finest and bravest crime writer in South Africa, and her revelations in this book are extraordinary. Her insight into South Africa's dark underworld is unprecedented - she possibly knows more about crime than even the criminals she writes about. Rogue cops, criminal syndicates and ruthless gangsters - this is a startling story told by a brilliant crime reporter who knows them all." Don Pinnock, investigative journalist and author of Gang Town

Investigative journalist Caryn Dolley is the author of The Enforcers – inside Cape Town’s deadly nightclub battles (2019), To The Wolves: How traitor cops crafted South Africa’s underworld (2021) and Clash of the Cartels, unmasking the global drug kingpins stalking South Africa (2022).