A Sparrow Falls by Wilbur Smith

Mark never heard the Mauser shot for the bullet came ahead of the sound. There was only the massive shock in the upper part of his body, and then he was hurled backwards with a violence that drove the air from his lungs.'

From the trenches of France, General Sean Courtney comes back to fame, fortune and a seat in the Government. Mark Anders, the courageous young South African whom he has come to regard as his own son, returns to nothing, his grandfather murdered, and his property seized by an unknown company. At the bottom of the mystery is Sean's son Dirk, the jealous, violent and power-crazed genius whose all-consuming hatred can only end in blood . . .

A Sparrow Falls is the thrilling third novel in the Courtneys series, continuing from When the Lion Feeds and The Sound of Thunder.