The South African author continues to denounce the corruption and violence that plague his country while allowing himself a few moments of romance.
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Lawyer Basie Small lies on his back, mouth open, choking with expanding foam in his throat. A frightening and unprecedented death, discovered by the shock duo, Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido. For dark and false reasons (see Greed, published in 2022 and reissued in Police Folio), the two police officers were demoted. They are no longer with the Hawks, an elite South African unit with authority, but find themselves rank-and-file cops busy solving bicycle thefts. After a few months in purgatory, they join the serious and violent crimes unit and it’s already better. Precisely, this bizarre murder case puts them back on track, because lawyer Basie Small was dating former special forces soldiers. Another victim, a politician, is killed in turn and in the same way. Behind all this, money, a lot of money.
As always with Deon Meyer, the intrigues multiply, thefts, corruption, millions of dollars in gold and banknotes, Russian mafia… But the most important thing is still the upcoming marriage of Benny Griessel, who hesitates and becomes afraid before the scale of the challenge. This big guy speaks easily with his fists but here, he trembles in the face of this responsibility and fears diving back into alcohol out of weakness. As for the tailor-made suit proposed by his daughter, Benny only sees it as a waste of time and money for a ceremony that paralyzes him. Meanwhile, Cupido continues her diet… only ten kilos left to lose!
He’s like that, Deon Meyer, a perfect professional ready to describe a cascade of murders, to denounce injustice and deplore the lack of democracy in his country, but also a flower by describing Benny all emotional in front of Alexa, when declaiming: “You are my glass of sunshine, my little bucket…”
This new investigation, the fifteenth, is not necessarily the best and we will rather rejoice at the pocket release of the brilliant the soul of the hunter (Seuil, 2003) but the novelist succeeds in touching us before pointing out the endemic corruption of his South Africa and its blind violence. The author captures the tiniest details and the reader smiles as Chrissie, tour guide and more, explains to Americans what to do when a lion charges. At this moment, we are in the heart of Zimbabwe, night falls and “the Milky Way forms a cathedral dome”. A skillful and sincere storyteller, the author will never finish describing his country, and no one will complain.
