Benny Griessel Mysteries
5 primary works
Book 3
In Deon Meyer's Thirteen Hours, which won the Barry Award for Best Thriller in 2011, Cape Town homicide detective Bennie Griessel struggled to solve the murder of an American girl, find her missing friend, and avoid drinking again, all in a single day.
In Seven Days, Griessel is given another nearly impossible task. Two police officers have been shot, and the department has received emails from the shooter alleging corruption and a cover up in a cold case. The shooter quotes scripture and threatens more violence until the cold case is solved.
The case in question is the murder of Hanneke Sloet, an ambitious lawyer stabbed to death in her luxury apartment. There's no apparent motive, no leads, and no promising forensic evidence. There's no sign of a struggle either; the front door to Sloet's apartment was not damaged, so Griessel is sure she either knew the killer, or the killer had a key. All in all, the original inspector seems to have done a thorough job, only to come up empty.
The one piece of evidence that Griessel finds promising is a set of provocative professional photos of herself that Sloet kept in her apartment. Perhaps jealous rage was the motive? Sloet's ex-boyfriend, who works at a vineyard making barrels, had the strength, the connection, and the access to the right type of blade, but he has an alibi that checks out.
And then, another cop is shot.
Pressure ramps up on Griessel, and on his feisty colleague, Captain Mbali Kaleni, who is hunting the shooter, trying desperately to find a connection to Sloet as the number of injured rise. The emails keep coming, and the shooter reaches out to the media. And then, as if Griessel's life isn't complicated enough, his girlfriend Alexa Bernard, a singer who was in Thirteen Hours, falls off the wagon herself thanks to the pressure of a big comeback concert.
Seven Days is another fantastic novel from Deon Meyer, one of international crime fiction's stars. He has won major awards and is gaining new fans here, as his Barry Award and successful tour for Thirteen Hours can attest. Seven Days is a completely gripping read, a brilliant amalgam of thriller and mystery.
Book 4
"Deon Meyer is one of the unsung masters." --Michael Connelly
At the start of this masterful thriller, a famous English mathematician is kidnapped and his two bodyguards are killed at a guest house in the beautiful wine country outside Cape Town. It's clearly a professional hit, and the spent shell cases offer a chilling clue: Each is engraved with the head of a spitting cobra.
Meanwhile, in the city, a skilled thief is using his talents to put his sister through college. But he picks the wrong pocket, grabbing the wallet of a young American woman delivering something very valuable and dangerous to South Africa. The thief not only becomes the target of the Cobra, but unwittingly has in his possession information that could cause an international outcry. And it's up to Captain Benny Griessel and his elite investigation team to find the pickpocket and track down the Cobra as the novel hurtles toward a brilliant, heart-stopping finale. Cobra is a first-rate thriller from a writer at the top of his game.
Book 5
Book 6
The Woman in the Blue Cloak is a compact jewel of a thriller, filled with Deon Meyer's earthy dialogue, clever plotting, and the memorable characters that have peopled all of Deon Meyer's award-winning novels.
Book 7
'The undisputed champion of South African crime. Meyer grabs you by the throat and never lets you go' Wilbur Smith
'From its startling opening to its tense and thrilling conclusion, Deon Meyer's The Last Hunt takes you on a whirlwind safari across two continents. In the whole of the Benny Griessel series so far, the stakes have never been higher or the odds so much against' Peter Robinson
***
A cold case for Captain Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido of the Hawks elite police unit - not what they were looking for. And a difficult case, too. The body of Johnson Johnson, ex-cop, has been found beside a railway line. He appears to have jumped from South Africa's - perhaps the world's - most luxurious train, and two suspicious characters seen with him have disappeared into thin air. The regular police have already failed to make progress and others are intent on muddying the waters.
Meanwhile in Bordeaux, Daniel Darret is settled in a new life on a different continent. A quiet life. But his skills as an international hit-man are required one more time, and Daniel is given no choice in the matter. He must hunt again - his prey the corrupt president of his homeland.
Three strands of the same story become entwined in a ferocious race against time - for the Hawks to work out what lies behind the death of Johnson, for Daniel to evade the relentless Russian agents tracking him, for Benny Griessel to survive long enough to take another huge step in his efforts to piece together again the life he nearly destroyed - and finally ask Alexa Bernard to marry him.
The Last Hunt shows one of the great crime writers operating at the peak of his powers.