Benny Griessel
6 total works
"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.
From the author of Thirteen Hours - A Sunday Times '100 best crime novels and thrillers since 1945' pick
I'll shoot a policeman every day until you arrest the murderer of Hanneke Sloet.
Shortly after the South African Police Services receive this threatening email, a policeman is shot by a sniper and recovering alcoholic Benny Griessel is ordered to reopen the Sloet case.
Hanneke Sloet was a sensual and ambitious lawyer. At the time of her murder she was working on one of the biggest Black Empowerment deals in South African history. She was found dead in her luxury Cape Town apartment, a single stab wound to her chest.
After forty days, the trail has gone cold. The first investigation could find no motive and no leads, only a set of nude photographs, an ex-boyfriend with a rock-solid alibi, conniving attorneys and financial double-dealing.
Benny has to deal with immense pressure from his superiors, the media and the unfathomable sniper, whose emails keep coming and who won't stop shooting. And then there's Benny's love interest, former pop sensation Alexa Barnard, who is also trying to rebuild her life after the ravages of alcohol, and Benny has to make sure she stays sober for her comeback.
At the same time, Benny's feisty colleague, Captain Mbali Kaleni, is hunting the shooter, trying desperately to find what connects him to Hanneke Sloet.
Both Benny and Mbali are about to endure seven days of hell.
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.