Deon Meyer
Author of 13 Hours
About the Author
Image credit: (Photograph: C Philippe MATSAS / OPALE. All rights reserved. OPALE Agency: www.agence-opale.com)
Series
Works by Deon Meyer
Associated Works
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Meyer, Deon
- Birthdate
- 1958
- Gender
- male
- Education
- Potchefstroom University
- Occupations
- journalist
- Awards and honors
- Le prix Mystère de la critique (2004)
Krimi Preis (2006)
Nominert til Sunday Times Literary Prize - Short biography
- Deon Meyer was born in the South African town of Paarl in the winelands of the Western Cape in 1958, and grew up in Klerksdorp, in the gold mining region of Northwest Province.
After military duty and studying at the Potchefstroom University, he joined Die Volksblad, a daily newspaper in Bloemfontein as a reporter. Since then, he has worked as press liaison, advertising copywriter, creative director, web manager, Internet strategist, and brand consultant.
Deon wrote his first book when he was 14 years old, and bribed and blackmailed his two brothers into reading it. They were not impressed (hey, everybody is a critic ...)
Deon Meyer
Heeding their wisdom, he did not write fiction again until he was in his early thirties, when he started publishing short stories in South African magazines.
"I still believe that is the best way to learn the craft of writing. Short stories teach you a lot about story structure - and you have limited space to develop character and plot," says Deon.
In 1994 he published his first Afrikaans novel, which has not been translated, "simply because it was not good enough to compete on the international market. However, it was a wonderful learning experience". All later novels have been translated into several languages, including English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Russian, Finnish, Czech, Romanian, Slovakian and Bulgarian.
Deon lives in Melkbosstrand on the South African West Coast with his wife, Anita, and they have four children to keep them busy: Lida, Liam, Johan and Konstanz.
Other than his family, his big passions are motorcycling, music (he is a Mozart fanatic, but loves rock 'n roll too), reading, cooking and rugby (he unconditionally supports the national Springbok team and the Free State Cheetahs provincial team). - Nationality
- South Africa
- Birthplace
- Paarl, South Africa
- Places of residence
- Klerksdorp, South Africa
Bloemfontein, South Africa
Melkbosstrand, South Africa
Loxton, South Africa
Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa - Map Location
- South Africa
Members
Reviews
In present-day South Africa three stories unfold in parallel . Christine explains to a patient Minister what led to her becoming a prostitute while Benny, an alcoholic police officer, has one last-ditch attempt to salvage his marriage and career. At the same time Thobela, a former freedom-fighter, is devastated when his adopted son is killed as an innocent bystander to a robbery and he turns to a life of vengeance.
This book reminded me of Peter Temple's The Broken Shore. Although they're set show more on different continents both books stretch the boundaries of traditional crime fiction and use the genre to demonstrate wider social issues in an understated way. And, like Temple, Meyer paints the most spectacular pictures with often only a handful of words, as with the sentence
"Beyond George the houses of the wealthy sat like fat ticks against the dunes, silently competing for a better sea view".
The book is littered with such startlingly clear images that make it easy to visualise the people never met and the places never visited.
At the beginning of the book I almost groaned audibly at the thought of yet another drunken copper (I've lost count of how many I've met over the years) but Meyer's depiction of the alcoholic's constant struggle with his demons is the most eloquently heart-wrenching character development I've read in a long time and I was soon internally cheering Benny's day-by-day efforts along. In fact Meyer takes his time, and ours, establishing all three characters and their separate, but ultimately linked stories. In a lesser writer's hands this would be annoying but here provides a solid foundation for what otherwise could be an unbelievable or far-fetched climax. Instead the stories are tantalisingly built to their inevitable but gripping combination and resolution.
While I won't pretend that one book can give a definitive view of such a mammoth thing as post-apartheid South Africa I think a good book can provide a valid snapshot of a time and place that helps define the bigger picture. All three characters struggle with details of 'the new South Africa' in very real ways that made me think more deeply than I've done before about what the removal of the apartheid system might have been like to live through from a variety of perspectives.
I learned since reading this book that while not strictly part of a series there are other books featuring some of these characters however I didn't once have the sense I was missing something by not having read anything else by this author. The book works entirely as a suspense-filled standalone novel which is haunting, unpredictable and utterly absorbing. show less
This book reminded me of Peter Temple's The Broken Shore. Although they're set show more on different continents both books stretch the boundaries of traditional crime fiction and use the genre to demonstrate wider social issues in an understated way. And, like Temple, Meyer paints the most spectacular pictures with often only a handful of words, as with the sentence
"Beyond George the houses of the wealthy sat like fat ticks against the dunes, silently competing for a better sea view".
The book is littered with such startlingly clear images that make it easy to visualise the people never met and the places never visited.
At the beginning of the book I almost groaned audibly at the thought of yet another drunken copper (I've lost count of how many I've met over the years) but Meyer's depiction of the alcoholic's constant struggle with his demons is the most eloquently heart-wrenching character development I've read in a long time and I was soon internally cheering Benny's day-by-day efforts along. In fact Meyer takes his time, and ours, establishing all three characters and their separate, but ultimately linked stories. In a lesser writer's hands this would be annoying but here provides a solid foundation for what otherwise could be an unbelievable or far-fetched climax. Instead the stories are tantalisingly built to their inevitable but gripping combination and resolution.
While I won't pretend that one book can give a definitive view of such a mammoth thing as post-apartheid South Africa I think a good book can provide a valid snapshot of a time and place that helps define the bigger picture. All three characters struggle with details of 'the new South Africa' in very real ways that made me think more deeply than I've done before about what the removal of the apartheid system might have been like to live through from a variety of perspectives.
I learned since reading this book that while not strictly part of a series there are other books featuring some of these characters however I didn't once have the sense I was missing something by not having read anything else by this author. The book works entirely as a suspense-filled standalone novel which is haunting, unpredictable and utterly absorbing. show less
Rating: 3.75* of five
The Book Description: From rising South African thriller writer Deon Meyer, a gripping suspense novel about revenge, forgiveness, and the race to catch a trained killer.
A young woman makes a terrible confession to a priest. An honorable man takes his own revenge for an unspeakable tragedy. An aging inspector tries to get himself sober while taking on the most difficult case of his career. From this beginning, Deon Meyer weaves a story of astonishing complexity and show more suspense, as Inspector Benny Griessel faces off against a dangerous vigilante who has everything on his side, including public sympathy.
A gruesome abuse case has hit the newsstands, and one man has taken it upon himself to stand up for the children of Cape Town. When the accused is found stabbed through the heart by spear, it's only the beginning of a string of bloody murders - and of a dangerous dilemma for detective Griessel. The detective is always just one step behind as someone slays the city's killers. But the paths of Griessel and the avenger collide when a young prostitute lures them both into a dangerous plan - and the two find themselves with a heart-stopping problem that no system of justice could ever make right.
My Review: For once it's a good thing I don't keep good track of who it was suggested I read something. Whoever suggested this book to me: Don't fess up or there will be split lips and black eyes in your immediate future.
I hated this reading experience. Hated it. Fathers with murdered children, children in jeopardy that they can only desperately struggle to save, oh my bloomin' garden I was hit from every emotional angle and then smacked from behind and then misdirected into several dark corners and therein kneecapped. I started reading the book and, six and a half hours and one piddle break later, emerged on the other side of the dust jacket with bloody stumps in place of my ground-away teeth, hurting belly from all the unaccustomed muscle-clenching, and a serious need for a shower and hair wash to rid myself of the stress-sweat stink.
I am still in a state of high dudgeon at being made to participate in the shenanigans surrounding vigilante justice that I can only say I approve of (oh how that hurts to type) and police corruption scandalously indifferently treated (pause for blood to stop boiling over) and a miserable alcoholic a-hole with a serious need to destroy, himself his life the world, whatever comes into range, who happens to be the one being Diogenes would light up with that damn lamp...!
So. Unless you want to be lifted from the confines of your safe little rut, smacked into walls and hit with unbearably terrifying images of loss and its unending damage, beaten with the sensory overload of immersion in a landscape and a culture alien and familiar and overwhelmingly pungently vibrantly present, don't even think of reading this book.
Poor you, if you don't. show less
The Book Description: From rising South African thriller writer Deon Meyer, a gripping suspense novel about revenge, forgiveness, and the race to catch a trained killer.
A young woman makes a terrible confession to a priest. An honorable man takes his own revenge for an unspeakable tragedy. An aging inspector tries to get himself sober while taking on the most difficult case of his career. From this beginning, Deon Meyer weaves a story of astonishing complexity and show more suspense, as Inspector Benny Griessel faces off against a dangerous vigilante who has everything on his side, including public sympathy.
A gruesome abuse case has hit the newsstands, and one man has taken it upon himself to stand up for the children of Cape Town. When the accused is found stabbed through the heart by spear, it's only the beginning of a string of bloody murders - and of a dangerous dilemma for detective Griessel. The detective is always just one step behind as someone slays the city's killers. But the paths of Griessel and the avenger collide when a young prostitute lures them both into a dangerous plan - and the two find themselves with a heart-stopping problem that no system of justice could ever make right.
My Review: For once it's a good thing I don't keep good track of who it was suggested I read something. Whoever suggested this book to me: Don't fess up or there will be split lips and black eyes in your immediate future.
I hated this reading experience. Hated it. Fathers with murdered children, children in jeopardy that they can only desperately struggle to save, oh my bloomin' garden I was hit from every emotional angle and then smacked from behind and then misdirected into several dark corners and therein kneecapped. I started reading the book and, six and a half hours and one piddle break later, emerged on the other side of the dust jacket with bloody stumps in place of my ground-away teeth, hurting belly from all the unaccustomed muscle-clenching, and a serious need for a shower and hair wash to rid myself of the stress-sweat stink.
I am still in a state of high dudgeon at being made to participate in the shenanigans surrounding vigilante justice that I can only say I approve of (oh how that hurts to type) and police corruption scandalously indifferently treated (pause for blood to stop boiling over) and a miserable alcoholic a-hole with a serious need to destroy, himself his life the world, whatever comes into range, who happens to be the one being Diogenes would light up with that damn lamp...!
So. Unless you want to be lifted from the confines of your safe little rut, smacked into walls and hit with unbearably terrifying images of loss and its unending damage, beaten with the sensory overload of immersion in a landscape and a culture alien and familiar and overwhelmingly pungently vibrantly present, don't even think of reading this book.
Poor you, if you don't. show less
Usually I am not that much into the suspense genre, but I sincerely enjoyed this novel by Deon Meyer. It contains the ingredients of an espionage story: a disk containing state secrets, police, secret services, a spy - or perhaps several spies - whose identity for a long time remains unclear and a former assassin who unexpectedly turns into the sympathetic protagonist of the story. Of course a journalist gets involved, and there are some romantic storylines.
Even though this may sound a show more little predictable, I thought the book was not. Perhaps because it is set in post Apartheid South Africa, and set against the background of the violent history of this country. Perhaps because the male/female and black/white oppositions have been worked out in original ways. Or because the characters have depth. Or because the descriptions of the South African landscapes are lovely.
It's a thrilling read (didn't want to stop reading) that is not superficial but gives you some food for thought on South Africa and on good and evil. show less
Even though this may sound a show more little predictable, I thought the book was not. Perhaps because it is set in post Apartheid South Africa, and set against the background of the violent history of this country. Perhaps because the male/female and black/white oppositions have been worked out in original ways. Or because the characters have depth. Or because the descriptions of the South African landscapes are lovely.
It's a thrilling read (didn't want to stop reading) that is not superficial but gives you some food for thought on South Africa and on good and evil. show less
Dean Meyer delivers another great entry in the Benny Griessel series. Reading about South African crime, policing, and politics from a South African perspective feels a bit like playing armchair, world-traveling detective. As usual Meyer conveys the tension that flows just under the civilized surface in Cape Town, while also imbuing the city with warmth, humanity, and hope. Somehow, even though Meyer's books focus on the worst crimes you can imagine, he makes me want to visit SA. While the show more South African aspects of the book are foreign to me, Benny is a universal character - recovering alcoholic, trying to come to terms with his ex-wife and her new husband, struggling to connect with his kids as they enter adulthood.
In Seven Days, Benny is re-investigating the case of a beautiful lawyer who has been stabbed to death in her apartment. The police are accused of botching the case the first time around, now Benny is trying again. To encourage the police to act quickly, a sniper starts shooting members of the police - one a day until the killer is caught. Given Benny's history, he runs about even odds of either solving the case or falling off the wagon.
Although the sniper plot pushes the investigate forward, the plot doesn't progress as smoothly. Other Meyer books have kept be glued to the pages all the way to the end. With Seven Days, I found it easy to put down and come back later. Still a good book, but not the most compelling of the series. It's definitely worth reading, but if you are new to Meyer's work, don't start with this book. show less
In Seven Days, Benny is re-investigating the case of a beautiful lawyer who has been stabbed to death in her apartment. The police are accused of botching the case the first time around, now Benny is trying again. To encourage the police to act quickly, a sniper starts shooting members of the police - one a day until the killer is caught. Given Benny's history, he runs about even odds of either solving the case or falling off the wagon.
Although the sniper plot pushes the investigate forward, the plot doesn't progress as smoothly. Other Meyer books have kept be glued to the pages all the way to the end. With Seven Days, I found it easy to put down and come back later. Still a good book, but not the most compelling of the series. It's definitely worth reading, but if you are new to Meyer's work, don't start with this book. show less
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- Works
- 26
- Also by
- 4
- Members
- 5,195
- Popularity
- #4,792
- Rating
- 3.9
- Reviews
- 261
- ISBNs
- 548
- Languages
- 13
- Favorited
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