JANUARY 2012 - AudioFile
Narrator Simon Vance expertly uses emphasis and pacing to capture the suspense of seemingly disparate story lines. In this South African thriller he creates memorable portrayals of the three protagonists: Milla Strachan, a housewife who escapes an abusive husband and lands a clandestine reporting job; Lemmer, a bodyguard involved in smuggling; and Mat Joubert, an ex-cop turned private investigator. These three lives are woven together across a backdrop of the beauty, corruption, racial tension, and violence that are contemporary South Africa. Vance adds to the authenticity of the experience by supplying South African accents with appropriate touches of British and Afrikaans dialects. K.C.R. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly
Meyer's ambition matches his execution in this brilliantly complex stand-alone thriller set in his native South Africa. In 2009, Janina Mentz, director of the Presidential Intelligence Agency, is disturbed by rumors that her agency, a creation of a prior administration, will be folded into a new, consolidated national intelligence bureaucracy. Desperate to guard her turf, Mentz banks on information about an Islamic terror plot to preserve the PIA and her job. Her plan to thwart the terrorists and bulletproof her agency by showcasing its utility involves using Milla Strachan, an unemployed woman who's just left her husband, as a researcher. Meanwhile, the efforts of bodyguard Lemmer, who played a key role in Blood Safari, to smuggle endangered black rhinos out of Zimbabwe lead to unexpected trouble. Few readers will anticipate exactly how the separate plot strands will be resolved. This powerhouse read, which captures the many facets of modern South Africa, should be the American breakthrough book this talented author deserves. (Sept.)
From the Publisher
Praise for Trackers
One of Kirkus Reviews Best Thrillers of the Year
“In his seventh novel, the king of South African crime fiction outdoes himself, packing in enough plot to power three separate novels. … Aside from masterfully juggling intricate plot details and ripping off some bloodcurdling action scenes, Meyer lays bare more ruthlessly than ever before the chaos that lurks beneath South Africa’s new identity ... Meyer has few equals when it comes to combining biting social critique and riveting action scenes. —Booklist (starred review)
“Meyer’s ambition matches his execution in this brilliantly complex standalone thriller set in his native South Africa. … This powerhouse read, which captures the many facets of modern South Africa, should be the American breakthrough this talented author deserves.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Award-winning crime fiction author Meyer demonstrates his superb gift for bringing together several disparate plots, striking characters, and vividly drawn scenes of contemporary South Africa, all roaring toward a climax with more than one surprise. … page-turning suspense and riveting mystery. Highly recommended.” —Library Journal (starred review)
“In his native South Africa … Meyer is a bigger hitter than his namesake Twilight author, whom he jokes is his cousin. His books regularly slay the vampire romances in the charts, with their gritty realisations of the seamier side of South African life.”—The Bookseller
“The ‘King of South African Crime’ has spun another intricate tale of intrigue, adventure, and crime.”—Deadly Pleasures
“Meyer’s punch lies in the authenticity and depth of his characters. And he has his finger on the pulse of modern South Africa. This is what makes Trackers a winner.”—Die Volksblad (South Africa)
“A cleverly constructed story – and a great adventure.”—Beeld (South Africa)
“This is a book you can only put down with great difficulty.”—Die Burger (South Africa)
"Trackers is technically probably the most challenging an author can attempt. But Meyer does it with consummate ease. With this book, I truly believe, he has now risen head and shoulders above what has been done in the crime genre internationally.”—Rapport (South Africa)
"[A] brilliant and intricately plotted thriller far beyond ordinary genre fiction. Trackers is an ambitious novel that opens a window into the people, the problems, and the landscapes of South Africa. Tense action scenes, unrelenting suspense, and a phenomenal cast of characters ranging from farmers and conservationists, to outlaws and intelligence agents, make it abundantly clear why Mr. Meyer has been crowned the 'King of South African crime.'"—New York Journal of Books
"A boon for the mystery/thriller connoisseur weary of the same old … backdrop, Meyer’s South Africa is palpable, a world at once achingly beautiful yet torn still by deep-seated racial hatred and injustice. … Trackers is a thick, meaty mystery … full of twists and subplots.”—Shelf Awareness
"In the second decade of the 21st century, some of the most compelling contemporary crime-fiction novels are either set in or coming from Africa. Much as Scandinavia became associated with the genre a few years back — thanks in large part to Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy — Africa may become a new capital of literary crime. … Just as the works of James Ellroy and Carl Hiaasen dig beneath the glitter and glamour of Hollywood and South Beach, respectively, to reveal a nasty, fetid underside, [Trackers goes] beyond nightly news pictures of deprivation and desperation."—Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
"An action-packed story that embraces the full problems, rough landscape and diverse peoples of South Africa."-The Lincoln Journal Star
"Once again, Deon Meyer creates a vivid and sometimes frightening look at life in contemporary South Africa, which serves as the background for a real can’t-put-it-downer of a thriller. In the course of his six previous novels, each of which has been more exciting than the previous one, he has continued to expand his plotting and characters. This is his most complex and intricate novel yet, filled with twists and ironies and a series of surprises in the conclusion that make it all work."—Mary Whipple, MaryWhippleReviews.com
"[Meyer's]outdone himself in Trackers, which is certain to top any mystery reader’s best-of-2011 list. This riveting tale has everything from a pair of rhinos to a coven of spies... You will not stop reading this book from the opening line: “Some days leave no tracks …” to the final word." —The Globe and Mail (Canada)
“Splendid… Astutely drawn… Trackers is a sprawling, invigorating and socially committed crime novel.”—Barry Forshaw, The Independent (UK)
Library Journal
Award-winning crime fiction author Meyer demonstrates his superb gift for bringing together several disparate plots, striking characters, and vividly drawn scenes of contemporary South Africa, all roaring toward a climax with more than one surprise. Milla Strachan, a discontented, fortyish housewife with journalistic yearnings, leaves her suburban family and takes a job writing security reports for the secretive Presidential Intelligence Agency. She becomes involved with a man who is being chased by her bosses and the CIA as a murderer and possible terrorist. Meanwhile, Lemmer, a professional bodyguard last seen in Blood Safari, is fighting gangsters while inadvertently smuggling black rhinos. Muslim terrorists lurk in the background of both plots. Elsewhere, Mat Joubert, a cop from Dead Before Dying who is now in private security, seeks a missing husband and a pile of money. VERDICT With a fine eye for detail, an unflattering image of South African culture, and clear sympathy for the downtrodden, Meyer still never loses his focus on page-turning suspense and riveting mystery. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 4/4/11.]—Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
JANUARY 2012 - AudioFile
Narrator Simon Vance expertly uses emphasis and pacing to capture the suspense of seemingly disparate story lines. In this South African thriller he creates memorable portrayals of the three protagonists: Milla Strachan, a housewife who escapes an abusive husband and lands a clandestine reporting job; Lemmer, a bodyguard involved in smuggling; and Mat Joubert, an ex-cop turned private investigator. These three lives are woven together across a backdrop of the beauty, corruption, racial tension, and violence that are contemporary South Africa. Vance adds to the authenticity of the experience by supplying South African accents with appropriate touches of British and Afrikaans dialects. K.C.R. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
Oh, what a tangled web those rhinos weave: South African mystery maven Meyers returns with a complex tale of intrigue and mayhem most satisfying.
Lemmer, the taciturn Afrikaner bodyguard whom we last saw inBlood Safari(2009), has a cardinal rule: Don't get mixed up in things. He might have known better, then, when he allows himself to get caught up in a snarled plot to smuggle black rhinos out of Zimbabwe, where they will be slaughtered so that their horns can go to make human-male-enhancing products for the Asian market. It's a noble enterprise, but as Lemmer well knows, no good deed goes unpunished, and no sooner does the operation embark than do things begin to unravel. Meanwhile, back in South Africa, a 40-something woman named Milla Strachan discovers, finally, that her husband is a right bastard, a "covert racist, bemoaning his lot in front of his son: 'Now we have to come home to a bloody black.' " The bloody black in question would be the maid who now tends to husband and offspring, since Milla has had enough of their abuse and has found a new home—and, more important, a new job working as an analyst for a shadowy government organization. Shift the focus a touch, and players in a cat-and-mouse game of terrorism and counterterrorism enter into the picture: al-Qaeda operatives on one hand, bureaucrats fearful of being made redundant in a downsizing of the post-apartheid security forces on the other. Meyer's carefully plotted narrative is multilayered and rich in detail, and it's to his credit that he is able to pull these separate, seemingly unrelated threads into an a-ha conclusion. In the end, it's about smuggling, killing, and other crimes, but also about the quotidian sins of racism, fear, aloofness, self-interest and mistreatment of others—in short, the ordinary human failings as well as their spectacular transgressions.
A first-rate thriller; a touch slow to get going, but hard to apply the brakes to once it gets rolling.
