""...a loss made keener by the property owner's knowledge that the thieves wouldn't even have been able to appreciate …"

"before he was knifed by a casual labourer he had dismissed without pay."

"people of another colour,” as the narrator calls them, are rioting in the townships outside the city ."

"bleeding mass of the boy into the house"

"I reply that I don’t write children’s stories; and he writes back that at a recent congress/book fair/seminar a certa…"

"A creaking of the kind made by the weight carried by one foot after another along a wooden floor. I listened. I felt …"

"“I have no burglar bars, no gun under the pillow. But I have the same fears as people who do take these precautions, …"

""It was not possible to insure the house, the swimming pool or the car against riot damage. There were riots, but the…"

"The man and his wife, talking of the latest armed robbery in the suburb, were distracted by the sight of the little b…"

"the trusted housemaid said these were loafers and tsotsis, who would come and tie and shut her in a cupboard."