SA’s 'Best' Crime Writer Fails On Reader’s First Try

Local crime writer tries to represent SA’s personal demons

Deon Meyer, hailed as ‘South Africa’s best crime thriller writer’, provides his readers with his fourth book, Devil’s Peak.

Born in the wine lands of the Western Cape in the 1950’s, Meyer started writing at the age of 14. An Afrikaans writer, he published his first novel in 1994 and since then, his individual pieces of work have been translated into 25 different languages including English.

With its original Afrikaans title, Infanta, Devil’s Peak won ‘The Golden Crowbar’, the highly sought Martin Beck award for Best Crime Novel translated into Swedish back in 2010.

‘Meyer paints a wonderful picture of the dark side of the rainbow nation with corrupt cops on the take, drug cartels on the make and ingrained racism among the police (....) Against the odds Meyer leaves us with a resolution that is both poignant and supremely satisfying.’ Peter Millar, The Times 

‘The biggest disappointment about the book is that Meyer doesn't seem to trust his own abilities, and insists on heaping more onto the story than it can ultimately bear. Things get really out of hand, and some of the plot-twists seem implausible.’ Complete Review.com  

The themes in Devil’s Peak mainly revolve around justice, neglect, failure and human instinct.

The justice South African civilians seek the neglect of family and what’s important, the failure to punish those accountable and the human instinct to do what is needed in order to survive.

The basic plot revolves around a middle-aged, alcoholic cop who has to deal with losing his family on one hand and hunting down South Africa’s next big serial killer, Artemis, on the other. The story delves into three main character’s lives – the cop, Benny Griesel, the killer – Thobela Mpayipheli and a Capetonian prostitute, Christine Van Rooyen. The experiences of all three characters at the time of the man-hunt develop ‘links and chains’; a timeline and the connections between all three become apparent to the reader, despite the characters’ naivety. Each dealing with their own demons, the story slowly but surely unravels an all too real situation, which showcases emotion and tragedy.

Meyer has some good descriptions, which I believe is needed in any story. The typical ‘Show, don’t tell’ rule. Based in the Western Cape, local readers will be able to proudly relate to the different areas and the descriptions he has attached to them. ‘I’ve been there; he couldn’t have described it any better’.

Whether the translation from Afrikaans to English has a slight part in it, I found the book to ‘drag’ on. At times the reader wants to get to the point, but too much description and emotional analysis gets in the way, with the reader becoming bored and not really concentrating. At most times, I found myself thinking of other things, whilst reading because it just didn’t grab my attention. I also felt that the character’s where ‘typical’.  For example, the typical alcoholic cop who loses his family because of his habit, with pre-meditated actions made by the reader because we have all read or known about someone just like him, there is nothing exciting about his characters. Too much was crammed into something that could have potential, with too much happening at once, causing confusion because you just don’t know what the hell is going on suddenly in the next paragraph.

If you want to read Deon Meyer, don’t start with this book. Hopefully the others are better.

(Research:)
Complete Reviews: http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/trcrime/meyerd4.htm
Deon Meyer Official Site: http://www.deonmeyer.com/books/devil.html
                                       http://www.deonmeyer.com/