A Tokoloshe seems to be the (South) African version of what we in the north would call a troll. Not the internet troll of the 21st century, but the original troublemaker from legends and fairy tales. In Salomon's novel »Tokoloshe Song«, tokoloshe’s do really exist, but of course all the legends lead to prejudice and fear which in their turn lead to public discrimination and even violence against the really quite loveable little creatures.

Fortunateley there are heroes like Richard or Phakama who do volunteerwork protecting and caring for tokoloshes. However, there are also villains like Mamron or Kras who abuse tokoloshes and any number of innocent people in pursuit of their dark and fiendish goals. And then there is the strange order of midwives sidelining in protecting peace and justice and order with the help of martial arts; guess whose side they are on in the conflict of criminal interest against protection of cuddly little troll-babies.

The plot is a bit too black-and-whitish to really convince, the characters are flat as can be and part of the developments are either easily predictable or do not make any sense at all. In the end, all loose ends are neatly tied up (except for the poor history professor who will sometime soon develop serious health problems, maybe simply because Salomon forgot about him) and of course the main character finds the love of his life - not a tokoloshe. The story is set in South Africa, which is fine. It makes lot of fuss about incorporating South African sights and places, just to prove it is really local, and that gets rather annoying. What makes this childish South-Africannes even more annoying is the fact that history or customs or local ways and mores play no roll at all, even though there are plenty opportunities for this in the plot.

On the other hand, there is also genuine madness and phantastic creativity which, all in all, makes this novel worth reading.