Carrot! Brian Joss reviews Chameleon
This review first appeared in The Tatler
On the face of it Chameleon is the ordinary story of an upper class family told by the protagonist Leigh Franklin who is a manipulator par excellence. She and her husband, Eric, have it all: Money and a house in Constantia. He is a top stockbroker and she is a high-powered trader in Forex and hedge funds. However, there is nothing ordinary about it at all. It is a dark and sinister story without the violence, racy language or sex that usually accompany crime thrillers. Which Chameleon is. However, it has an edge to it and you will find it hard to put it down.
Franklin gives up her career to become the perfect mother to Lisa and she is determined to bring her up in the same way her doting parents, especially her father, did. However, no matter how much you wish it, nothing goes according to plan. Lisa doesn’t turn out as expected. She’s not as beautiful as her mother was, she’s not a brilliant student but she does have an adventurous streak and Leigh can’t control her so she finds solace in a fake online stockmarket.
But when Lisa falls pregnant at the age of 16, it sets off a sequence of events that spin out of control.The big question is what to do about the baby – give it up for adoption or keep it?
Then Eric is arrested for insider trading and he is sent to Pollsmoor where he finds God and has an affair with his social worker. That and Lisa’s pregnancy is all the sex in the book. The weapon that did the damage is not a knife or a gun.Cleverly, Erasmus drops tantalising bytes of information that compel you to keep reading. It is about the execution of a white collar crime in which no-one is physically hurt and where the characters survive without major scars in their psyches. However, that’s because they are chameleons – good at adapting to their surroundings and wearing masks – so they can hide their true motives.
As in any thriller, there is motive and opportunity and the perpetrator is brought to justice but not in the way you would expect.
Erasmus got the idea for Chameleon from the much-publicised case of Greg Blank.He was jailed for defrauding Old Mutual of millions, through insider trading. It made headlines in the 1990s and, unlike Eric, who had a torrid time in Pollsmoor, Blank made the Krugersdorp jail, where he was incarcerated, a home from home.
Chameleon is a fascinating and intriguing read. Erasmus seems to have an unusual insight into how people behave and, layer by layer, she peels the skin off her characters to show the reader what’s underneath. The words and phrases that Erasmus uses so skilfully also have a disquieting undertone, which adds to the tension of this intelligently written thriller.
It is highly recommended and is available from most book stores at R149 and will be money well spent. Read it, you won’t be sorry.
