Like a pebble dropped in a pond, the effects of two deaths — one in the Johannesburg home of the wealthy Silverman family, and the second, hundreds of miles away on a Free State farm — ripple across South Africa and the world, irrevocably changing the lives of four people:

* Tracy Jacobs who must choose between saving her career or defending her chance of happiness.

* Aviva Silverman who must risk the new life she has made for herself to defend the family she left behind.

* Carol Aronowitz who has to stoop to unethical deception to defend herself against allegations of incompetence and dereliction of duty.

* Yair Silverman who stands to lose everything as he takes a drastic decision to deceive everyone.

Set against the backdrop of South Africa’s post-Mandela, Zuma-era decline, Deceive and Defend is as current and thought provoking as today’s headlines.