Little Ice Cream Boy

Jacques Pauw’s Little Ice Cream Boy is a terrifying South African crime story, based on true events:

‘My cell is hardly the size of a king-size bed. I would say slightly bigger than a shithouse … No way of getting out of it … And so you whirl and spin until your head explodes. You stick your fingers in a goon’s bloodshot eyes. You grab a baton and swing it about until you feel and hear bones crush and splinter under its weight.’

So begins the tale of an inmate of Pretoria Central Prison (known as the Bomb) condemned to serve three life sentences for murder, starting a gruelling journey back from the present into the depths of his childhood and through bloodcurdling events that led to his conviction. The author draws on his knowledge of the worst of the Apartheid assassins to paint this fictionalised account of one of their number. As the plot unfolds the reader is shown in gritty reality the seedy side of Johannesburg’s West Rand suburbs in the 60s and the underbelly of Hillbrow’s escort agencies and brothels in the 70s.

The story is told by Gideon Goosen and contrasts his debauched past with his growing romance with Debbie, who looks like Goosen’s mother, and sends him perfumed letters full of sweetness and caring to prison. The book is a mixture of fact and fiction – the story is based on Pauw’s extensive research into the CCB (Civil Co-operation Bureau) and the atrocities they committed, but the details of Goosen’s childhood and the interweaving of the events are Pauw’s own creation.

ISBN-13: 9780143025924
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