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The Golden Spiderweb

by John Weeks

358 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #06-1311; ISBN 1-4120-9556-5; US$23.52, C$27.05, EUR19.32, £13.52

Africa with all the frills from earliest times to 1972. Historical romp from Somalia to the Cape and covering the Great Trek - hunting in the Okavango - and political intrigue and adventure.

The book starts on the Ogaden Plateau in somalia and covers one of their major tribal leaders' journeys to Mogadishu and on to China and Macau. He meets with Da Gama's 'lost ship'. The captain of that ship (Alberto) forms a close bond with the Somalian and they set sail for Mozambique where they are shipwrecked.

They travel to the Zimbabwe Ruins and meet the Mutapa of the Karanga Dynasty who built Great Zimbabwe and form a strong paternship with them. The awful midget witchdoctor 'Chidoma' who masterminds the genocide of the Cushites has found the huge gold cache of the Cushite King in the ruins tower. The Cushites had used Zimbabwe Ruins as a gold trading post for dealings with the Arabs on the Sofala coastline. The captain of the lost ship, Alberto Fontes, who has fallen in love with the Sultan of Sofala's dancing troupe leader assists in hiding this massive hoard of gold on Zimbabwe's highest mountain. Many many years later the gold is rediscovered by the grandson of one of the heroes of the great trek, Corne Van Niekerk. His grandson decides to externalise the gold in a daring run through Mozambique. The book concludes in the Palace of the King of Basutoland and allows for a sequel up to and beyond present day times.

Born in England, and at age seven came by ship to the Cape and has lived in Zimbabwe ever since. Had business interests in this country and in Mozambique and is fluent in the local vernacular. Served for five years in the British South Africa Police before joining his father in the engineering business.

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