“Leo” by Deon Meyer

The thriller of the week chosen by Gilbert Chevalier is “Leo”, a novel by Deon Meyer in the Série Noire by Gallimard.

Deon Meyer, after having carefully followed the upheavals of the post-apartheid years in South Africa, is now settling accounts, severely, with the South African power, corrupt as ever.

We find there some of his recurring characters, and especially his two favorite cops, the former alcoholic Benny Griessel et al his teammate Vaughn Cupidotwo elite investigators, demoted to a second-rate police station and who, after having been elite police officers, now practically take care of crushed cats. Punishment for not having been perfectly docile.

But after a few months and thanks to some support, they returned to the serious and violent crimes unit. And the two investigators, after the disturbing death of a pseudo-lawyer, will put their hands in a gear which will once again lead them to fight political corruption, which has flourished in recent years. Former special forces soldiers are involved in a settling of scores against a backdrop of robberies and the capture of public money. And we note with pleasure that Deon Meyer still has the same ability to show us around his South Africa, even if his dream of a rainbow nation has taken a hit.

And there, we dive into the heart of the Deon Meyer reactor: post-apartheid South Africa. The role of the ANC, the recycling of its former clandestine soldiers, and the tenacious resistance of a part of white Afrikaner society. HASvec The soul of the hunter, Deon Meyer invites us into a sort of chase. We follow a former killer from the armed wing of the ANC. It was Mandela's party which had training camps in Angola, Zambia, but also in the USSR and in the Warsaw Pact countries.

Since the change of regime and after a few errors, this former formidable killer has rebuilt an honorable and peaceful life. But one day, the daughter of an old fellow fighter comes to ask for his help. The former killer is faced with a dilemma. A bit like a metaphor for what South African society was experiencing at the time. Deon Meyer wrote The soul of the hunter at the beginning of the 2000s. It is brilliant for the fine, human and political observation of the transformation which takes place before the eyes of the writer, and also brilliant for the breathtaking and spectacular rhythm of this chase through the 'South Africa.