OCTOBER 2012 - AudioFile
Deon Meyer takes listeners out of their comfort zones with this complex story of murder and revenge in modern South Africa. British narrator Simon Vance confidently takes on the challenge of delivering the intertwined stories of a socialite's murder and a mysterious sniper who shoots police to encourage them to solve the crime. SEVEN DAYS is the latest Meyer book featuring Detective Bennie Griessel, who sounds like he gargles with glass. Vance breezes through names and places unfamiliar to Western ears. The terms are so foreign that the author includes a glossary. The characters are colorful and wonderfully human. Vance lets us feel the pain of the overweight female detective who is abused by her colleagues, the confusion of the old detective who is befuddled by technology, and the insanity of the cop-killer. M.S. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
Superior prose and characterization enable Meyer to make the most of a familiar plot device in his third crime thriller with self-loathing Cape Town homicide detective Benny Griessel (after 2010’s Barry Award–winning Thirteen Hours). Griessel, a recovering alcoholic assigned to the Directorate of Priority Crimes Investigations, looks into an e-mail threat to shoot a policeman every day until the murderer of Hanneke Sloet is caught, starting that very day with the nonfatal shooting of a constable in the leg. The anonymous e-mailer, who insists the authorities know why Sloet, an attractive attorney, was stabbed to death, demands that the 40-day-old case be reopened immediately. Griessel takes up this political hot potato of a case as more e-mail communiqués add to the mystery of the sniper’s motives. Meyer balances the personal and professional adroitly, with a solution reminiscent of Peter Lovesey at his twistiest. Agent: Isobel Dixon, Blake Friedmann Literary. (Sept.)
Sound Commentary
“Meyer’s writing is wonderful, as always, and his characters are so well drawn that the reader/listener gets to know them intimately. . . . [Vance’s] meticulous attention to getting each character’s voice just right, as well as keeping the voices consistent, make the listening experience breathtaking.”
—Sound Commentary [starred review]
Booklist
“Vance confidently and skillfully controls the pressing pace and creates memorable voices for both major and minor characters in this densely populated crime thriller. . . . Recommend this audio based on strength of plot and Vance’s skillful delivery.”
—Booklist
Kirkus Reviews
In Deon Meyer's previous mystery (Thirteen Hours, 2010, etc.), South African detective Benny Griessel had all of one workday to solve a murder. In this follow-up he's allowed a full week to find the killer of a glamorous lawyer, Hanneke Sloet. And given the number of leads and complications that keep turning up, he needs every minute he can get. At first, Griessel's department, a select team known as the Hawks, can find few clues in the Sloet case. And that's unfortunate, because an elusive sniper is so preoccupied with the case that he's shooting policemen and sending emails full of Biblical quotes and anti-Communist rhetoric. Stepping up the investigation, the Hawks discover the kinks in the victim's respectable life: She'd been negotiating a high-finance deal that may have involved the Russian Mafia; and she'd lately done a nude photo shoot after breast-enhancement surgery. Meanwhile, the list of dead and wounded cops piles up, and Griessel has good reason to suspect he might be next. Meyer is good with sexy plot complications, and the mysteries of Sloet's murder and the sniper's identity take interesting turns along the way. But the book's main strength is in its characters; as Griessel's colleagues include Vaughn Cupido, a hot-blooded "bad cop," and Mbali Kaleni, a strong policewoman who harbors an embarrassing secret from a recent Amsterdam trip (this too is revealed at book's end). Griessel himself is no typical action hero: A recovering alcoholic prone to self-doubt, he's fighting to get over his broken marriage and to build a new relationship with Alexa, a former pop star who's also in recovery. Griessel is flawed but likable, and his trials give a bittersweet edge to a strong mystery.
