The Plot to Save South Africa: masterful account of an assassination that nearly derailed efforts to end apartheid

Chris Hani (R) after being elected secretary general of the South African Communist Party in December 1991. To his left is the former secretary general Jo Slovo. Walter Dhladhla/AFP via Getty Images

I was about to set off to the airport on the morning of 10 April 1993 to cover the great American boxer Muhammad Ali’s arrival in Johannesburg when the news came through: Chris Hani had been murdered.

Of all the African National Congress (ANC) leaders I’d met during a decade of underground membership during the 1980s, the one who impressed me the most was Hani.