Detective sergeant Paul Mackenzie of the Durban Police Department arrives in London determined to solve the mystery surrounding his detective brother's death. Matthew Simon Richardson is a member of the British aristocracy who travels the world as a gun for hire, a sniper whose one motivation in life is the chase and the kill.

The South African is the story of two men born on the same day, six thousand miles apart, whose lives become interwoven as one seeks the truth and the other his raison d'etre.