num_pages: 416
description: Leon Labuschagnes livelihood depends on death. At nineteen he is a Death Row warder at Maximum Security Prison in Pretoria South a shepherd who cares for the condemned  and a butcher who escorts them to the gallows. In the summer of 1987 after thirty-two men were hanged in two weeks (all real cases) Leon loses control with tragic results. And now hes the one facing the death penalty.Only the most precarious line of legal argument stands between Leon and the gallows. Chasing a defense his advocate trawls the deepest recesses of life in the Pot  the twilight world of Death Row  in order to determine the effect of multiple executions on his young client. In 1987 164 people were executed at Maximum Security. Two years later the last man went to the gallows after more than four thousand hangings in Pretoria in that century.Shepherds &amp; Butchers portrays legal execution in unprecedented detail revealing its devastating impact on all those involved. At the same time it exposes the callous violence on the other side of the noose where murderers reign. Chris Marnewicks first novel is a gripping courtroom drama steeped in the factual.
language: English
title: Shepherds & Butchers
publisher: Umuzi