Praise for The Dark Flood:
Longlisted for the Crime Writers’ Association Crime Fiction in Translation Dagger
An Amazon Best Book of the Month (Mystery, Thriller, and Suspense)
“Deon Meyer is the monarch of South African crime novelists.”—Financial Times
“Achieves a fine mix of suspense, action, political intrigue, and personal revelation.”—Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal
“Is Deon Meyer the most accomplished South African crime novelist in the genre’s history? The Dark Flood is further evidence of that assertion . . . Every word earns its place, and there’s no stinting on the usual critique of South African politics.”—Barry Forshaw, Financial Times
“Many writers treat character and context as window-dressing for their plots. Meyer roots his novels in them. This makes Griessel’s fate important to the reader and gives Meyer’s writing the heft of Table Mountain, as well as the ability to take your breath away.”—Times (UK), “Book of the Month”
“Detective Benny Griessel and his partner Vaughn, demoted and reposted to a wealthy South African town, track a seemingly mundane missing-person case that unearths gang ties and police corruption. Packed with cars, confrontations, and local slang, the fast-paced book excels when the detectives’ easy patter and cooperation get a chance to shine.”—Christian Science Monitor
“The return of the engaging duo Griessel and Cupido is long overdue. In a thriller packed with intrigue and biting social commentary, Meyer proves he is South Africa’s finest crime writer.”—Jon Coates, Sunday Express
“Excellent.”—Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine
“A fast-moving South African police procedural . . . The plotlines are tightly knitted together, and the story ends with a nifty twist. A well-crafted blend of suspense, culture, and humor. Meyer is terrific.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Absorbing procedural details lead to an explosive confrontation with a ruthless street gang and a police-corruption scheme that links South African Police Service to the country’s devastating political scandals. It’s a grim period for South Africa, but Griessel and Caputo remain loyal to justice and to each other. A gritty but surprisingly hopeful installment in Meyer’s immensely popular series.”—Booklist
“Fans of Jo Nesbø’s similarly character-driven Harry Hole mysteries will find lots to like here.”—BookPage
Praise for the Benny Griessel Series:
“[An] outstanding series . . . In word, deed, and spirit, Mr. Meyer’s humane and engaging characters are indeed among ‘the best of the best.’”—Tom Nolan, Wall Street Journal, on The Last Hunt
“Deon Meyer is one of the unsung masters.”—Michael Connelly
“The undisputed champion of South African crime. Meyer grabs you by the throat and never lets you go.”—Wilbur Smith, bestselling author of Courtney’s War
“Mr. Meyer, the leading thriller writer in his native country, traffics in crime-novel situations familiar the world over: drunken cops, charming robbers, dangerous murderers, sudden violence—and sometimes, issues of race. Mr. Meyer’s South Africa, however, is unique. His books, translated from Afrikaans, are usually set in the Cape Town region, where mountains spectacularly meet the sea on the Horn of Africa. Amid these vistas his detective confronts his own—and his country’s—tortured past and the legacy of Apartheid.”—Wall Street Journal, on Cobra
“Meyer . . . vividly depicts the story of South Africa in his novels, from the hope and turmoil of the fall of apartheid to the corrupt and desperate aspects of present-day Cape Town . . . Meyer’s novels have an insistent forward motion, and the ones featuring Captain Griessel in particular have a pleasing relentlessness.”—Los Angeles Review of Books, on Cobra
“A serious writer who richly deserves the international reputation he has built.”—Washington Post, on Cobra
“Deon Meyer’s name on the cover is a guarantee of crime writing at its best.”—Tess Gerritsen, New York Times bestselling author of Playing with Fire, on Icarus
“Deon Meyer’s South Africa is laid bare in Icarus; it is as glittering and hard as the diamonds his country is famous for . . . Meyer utilizes the crime fiction genre as an apparatus to create a multifaceted, unsparing picture of his country.”—Independent, on Icarus
“South African author Deon Meyer’s Benny Griessel series is one of the high points of contemporary crime fiction, and the fifth title, Icarus, is his best yet . . . [An] expertly engineered tale of sex, lies, and fraud.”—Guardian (Best Recent Crime Fiction Novels), on Icarus
“Deon Meyer continues his string of superb, tightly constructed timeline thrillers. Coming on the heels of the breath-holding Thirteen Hours, Seven Days takes us into the heart of a major police hunt for a killer targeting policemen as he demands the investigation of a seemingly unsolvable cold case.”—Globe & Mail, on Seven Days
“Thirteen Hours has breathtaking suspense, psychological understanding, and one of the most inspiring detectives ever. Deon Meyer deserves his international reputation.”—Thomas Perry, author of The Burglar, on Thirteen Hours
“A smashing story. Imposing a strict time limit and a tight location on his plot, [Meyer] ramps up the suspense to an unbearable degree. Best of all, his sharply drawn characters really feel part of the new South Africa, where loyalties and beliefs must always be questioned.”—Financial Times, on Thirteen Hours
12/01/2021
In Barclay's Take Your Breath Away, Andrew Mason is suspected of murdering wife Brie after she disappears, and further complications arise when someone resembling her shows up at the couple's old address before vanishing again (100,000-copy first printing). First seen in Brown's 2021 New York Times best seller, Arctic Storm Rising, former U.S. Air Force officer Nick Flynn now faces a Countdown to Midnight, with Midnight the code name for a secret project between Russia and Iran involving a lethal new weapon (125,000-copy first printing). In Burke's Every Cloak Rolled in Blood, novelist Aaron Holland is guided by the ghost of his recently deceased daughter when his do-gooding efforts draw him into a shady crowd that includes a former Klansman, a not-so-saintly minister, some scary fake-evangelical bikers, and a murderer (100,000-copy first printing). In Carr's In the Blood, a Mossad operative known to former Navy SEAL James Reece is killed in a plane explosion (she herself had just completed a targeted assassination), but searching for the culprit might mean walking into a trap (200,000-copy first printing). In Horowitz's third James Bond outing, as yet Untitled, 007 is starting to question his role as the Cold War wears on but agrees to act as a double agent so that he can infiltrate a newly hatched Soviet intelligence organization (50,000-copy first printing). Unfolding 15 years after events in Iles's "Natchez Burning" trilogy, Southern Man reintroduces Penn Cage, back in action as shots fired at a Bienville music festival nearly kill his daughter, a militant Black group takes responsibility for the torching of antebellum mansions, and a close friend is shot to death by a county deputy (200,000-copy first printing). Her career stumbling, lawyer Nicole Muller gladly complies when she's asked by the exclusive women's professional group Panthera Leo to Please Join Us, but as author McKenzie soon reveals, membership comes at a price (60,000-copy first printing). Demoted from the elite Hawks police unit for being too keen on uncovering state corruption, Meyer's stalwart detectives Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido await transfer from Cape Town to dull duty in Stellenbosch when an anonymous warning and a missing-student assignment reveal that The Dark Flood of corruption they knew was there is worse than they imagined. On a business trip with her new, much younger husband, Pavone's latest heroine, Ariel Price, can't enjoy her Two Nights in Lisbon; she awakens one morning to find her spouse missing and begins to realize that she hardly knows him (200,000-copy first printing). Edgar-nominated for The Impossible Fortress and also the editor behind Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Rekulak returns with Hidden Pictures, featuring a nanny whose five-year-old charge draws increasingly creepy and sophisticated pictures (shown in the text) hinting at a long-ago murder (250,000-copy first printing). A woman lies murdered, surrounded by Dark Objects that include the book How To Process a Murder by forensics expert Laughton Rees, who's of course immediately called to the scene; the latest from "Sanctus" author Toyne (50,000-copy first printing).
★ 2022-03-02
A fast-moving South African police procedural translated from Afrikaans.
On a wintry July day, hotshot detective Capt. Benny Griessel and Capt. Vaughn Cupido take an unauthorized jump into a cash-in-transit heist and wind up nearly getting fired. They are both demoted to warrant officer and transferred from Cape Town to nearby Stellenbosch. There, they are assigned to investigate the disappearance of Calvyn “Callie” Wilhelm de Bruin, a computer genius and academic standout from a poor family. In a separate plotline, billionaire sociopath Jasper Boonstra approaches real estate agent Sandra Steenberg on an exclusive basis to sell his wine farm, Donkerdrif, in absolute secrecy. She desperately needs the commission to resolve the dire financial problems she is hiding from her beloved husband. Meanwhile, the detectives chase down clues about Callie as they reveal their own personal problems: Griessel is a so-far-so-good recovering alcoholic, while Cupido frets about his weight prior to his impending marriage—his fiancee has him eating “like a vege-fucka-tarian.” As we Yanks would watch our calorie intake, he must watch his kilojoules. “You can’t eat, and I can’t drink,” Griessel says. “We are the perfect partnership.” American crime buffs might feel a light culture shock with this story. The translator leaves in enough Afrikaans words to flavor the narrative, but the reader will occasionally ponder their meanings, as in laaitie, stompie, and fokkit (OK, we can guess that last one). And then there’s “Smack me with a snot snoek.” Eew. Griessel and Cupido are talented, brave, and funny. After Cupido eventually lays eyes on Steenberg, he notes that “she’s so hot, she gives me heat rash.” Unfortunately, Boonstra thinks so too, and therein lies a problem. What will Steenberg do to earn the commission she needs so badly? And will Callie be found alive? The plotlines are tightly knitted together, and the story ends with a nifty twist.
A well-crafted blend of suspense, culture, and humor. Meyer is terrific.
