Tangled Web UK Review June 2007
Devil's Peak by
Deon Meyer
hbk out June 07
Published by Hodder
at £12.99
Afrikaan's writer Meyer has already written about former freedom fighter
Thobela (Tiny) Mpayipheli in The Heart of The Hunter. With Devil's Peak he
takes us into post-apartheid South Africa, to a place where corruption is
endemic, crime is out of control and the horrendous practice of child-rape
(believed to cure AIDS) puts the country's children at terrible risk. Thobela is
in a darker place too: his eight-year-old adopted son is killed in a violent
robbery and when those responsible escape punishment Thobela turns
vigilante. He seeks out those who have evaded justice after committing
crimes against children. Knowing the identity of the killer does not reduce the
suspense of the plot as we follow gifted drunk Inspector Benny Griessel in his
attempts to hunt this populist predator. Meyer adopts an interesting
structure for the narrative: we have the confessions of a middle-class single-
mother turned prostitute alternating with Thobela's story and Benny's
investigation and it is some time into the book before the tragic connections
between the three fully emerge. But Meyer is a gifted writer and there is
never any doubt that everything will fit together as we reach the denouement.
Crime is a genre which is particularly strong on setting and Meyer's novels
transport the reader to another country, creating a completely believable and
disturbing view of South Africa.
(
Cath Staincliffe
author of the popular Sal Kilkenny mysteries and the series creator of TV Blue Murder)
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