Why would a mathematics professor from Cambridge University, renting a holiday home outside Cape Town, require a false identity and three bodyguards? And where is he, now that they are dead? The only clue to the bodyguards’ murder is the snake engraved on the shell casings of the bullets that killed them.
Investigating the massacre, Benny Griessel and his team find themselves being drawn into an international conspiracy with shocking implications. It seems it is not just the terrorists and criminals of Britain and South Africa who may fear the Professor’s work, but the politicians too.
As the body count begins to spiral viciously, Benny must put his new-found love life aside and focus on finding the one person who could give him a break in the case: a teenage pickpocket on the run in the city. But Benny is not the only person hunting for Tyrone Kleinbooi . . .
Relentlessly suspenseful, topical, hard-hitting and richly rewarding, COBRA is a superb novel from an author who is acclaimed around the world as a brilliant voice in crime fiction.
English translation © K. L. Seegers. Originally published in Afrikaans in 2013 as Kobra by Human & Rousseau.
(P)2014 Hodder & Stoughton
Investigating the massacre, Benny Griessel and his team find themselves being drawn into an international conspiracy with shocking implications. It seems it is not just the terrorists and criminals of Britain and South Africa who may fear the Professor’s work, but the politicians too.
As the body count begins to spiral viciously, Benny must put his new-found love life aside and focus on finding the one person who could give him a break in the case: a teenage pickpocket on the run in the city. But Benny is not the only person hunting for Tyrone Kleinbooi . . .
Relentlessly suspenseful, topical, hard-hitting and richly rewarding, COBRA is a superb novel from an author who is acclaimed around the world as a brilliant voice in crime fiction.
English translation © K. L. Seegers. Originally published in Afrikaans in 2013 as Kobra by Human & Rousseau.
(P)2014 Hodder & Stoughton
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Reviews
This year's great discovery: classy, edgy writing, subtly plotted and beautifully balanced between fast-paced action, pungent social comment and the process of investigation.
Benny is the central character in South African writer Deon Meyer's series of novels, set in Capetown, that grow richer and more sophisticated with each new book. This progression makes COBRA the most dazzling of the bunch.
Praise for Deon Meyer
The narrative is well-plotted, and the novel brings to life the rich and volatile diversity of contemporary South Africa. There's nothing flashy here, just a good story, very well told. Would there were more like it.
Deon Meyer is a top notch plotter and has created one of the best ensemble (and multi-racial) casts of any modern police procedural series.
Deon Meyer's gritty crime novels [are] part police procedural, part political thriller . . . What makes Meyer such a national treasure - and as good as anyone in the world - is that even if you have no knowledge or interest in South Africa's history or present, his books are compelling page-turners. Politics and race are just part of the intricately crafted superstructure bolted onto the rock-solid chassis of a top-quality crime thriller, driven by a writer with deceptive skill.
Crime fiction with real texture and intelligence.
Tells a cracking story and captures the criminal kaleidoscope of a nation.
