Crime of the times

Devil’s Peak

by Deon Meyer

(Jonathan Ball)

Yolandi Groenewald

Deon Meyer creates a dark Cape Town and bleak South Africa in his new thriller, Devil’s Peak, translated from the original Afrikaans novel Infanta (2004).

Meyer’s main character, Detective Inspector Bennie Griessel, is battling his own demons while trying to track down a vigilante with a vendetta against those committing crimes against children.

Struggling to keep his drinking problem under control, Griesel has been kicked out by his family, but nonetheless attempts to reconcile with his kids.

The vigilante is a favourite from another Meyer thriller, Heart of the Hunter, which readers worldwide have come to adore. His fall from grace among the suburbs and doorways of Cape Town is one of the highlights of Devil’s Peak. But the vigilante and Griessel are not the only noir characters here.

Enter Christine, who is the centrepiece of the story, and might not be all that she says she is. Her background and how she landed in her current predicament are intriguing.

And in between there are some thoroughly despicable characters such as those in a Columbian drug cartel the trio has to tangle with.

As in most Meyer thrillers, police politics feature throughout and readers get a glimpse into the world of South Africa’s criminal catchers. Meyer’s impeccable research in this area shines through.

Devil’s Peak is a sombre but terrifying thriller, and some parts will ignite even those readers with the iciest of hearts. At the end, a glimmer of hopes shines through for the fallen characters and readers who gasped out loud in shock will find some redemption. In all, Meyer plays the best of mind games with his readers.

The Fence

by Andrew Gray

(Human & Rousseau)

Barbara Ludman

If you’ve been missing John le Carré, here’s some news: there’s a lot in The Fence that’s reminiscent of the master’s recent output, especially The Mission Song.

The tone is largely cynical, with an innocent protagonist injecting the odd touch of idealism. Lawyer Jan Klein has agreed to take on a research job in Angola for the general he served under on the border. The general is a charming, sinister fellow in charge of security for Brano, the biggest diamond-selling firm in the world (nope, not De Beers); he’s outsourced the heavy stuff to a security company called Strategic Solutions (not, of course, Executive Outcomes). The subject—diamonds and Angola, then and now—requires a great deal of explanation, something Le Carré has lately been doing in long stretches of conversation. Andrew Gray uses the same device.

His characters are interesting, from the brothers-in-law who buy blood diamonds and sell them on to the general’s firm, to the ex-paratroopers who work for Strategic Solutions; its border war veterans are for hire all over Africa. There is pretty constant recalling of battles and night-time jumps; Klein is only accepted when he reveals he’d made a couple of jumps himself.

He’s been hired to find out what the middlemen are up to. What Brano is up to is getting hold of a diamond concession in the Cuango Valley, where Unita has been getting its diamonds to finance the war. French and American companies are also after this lucrative piece of the action, and the Angolan government knows how to play its trump card.

The book is billed as a “political thriller”. It’s a first novel by Gray, who spent 10 years in government and perhaps too much time in the old South African Defence Force.