The Dark Flood – Deon Meyer
‘The undisputed champion of South African crime’ – Wilbur Smith
English-speaking readers had a particularly long wait for their annual dose of Deon Meyer thrills and spills last year: We all knew the Afrikaans (and original) version was out there many months earlier, but most of us chose to wait for K. L Seeger’s translated text as we knew it was likely to be a great work of words, as she achieved with Meyer’s previous novels.
And it is, although this title took a tad longer than some of its predecessors to reach the hair-raising nail-biting stage . But, when it did, wow, did the pace pick up as events galloped to their spine-chilling conclusions.
The Benny Griessel Burger, created by Bertus Basson of Die Vrije Burger in Sellenbosch
Former Hawks officers Benny Griessel and ‘Vaughn Cupido have been demoted, and sent to Stellenbosch where they are told to work separately. While very unhappy, they aim to make the best of it, hoping they would be reinstated in the near future. Cupido is assigned to the case of a missing university student , while soon afterwards Griessel is told to head the investigation of the unexpected disappearance of one Jasper Boonstra, a billionaire Stellenbosch businessman who is also a fraudster and sexual predator. His corporate fraud has seen the local property market crash, just when estate agent Sandra Steenberg desperately needs a big sale to catch up on her domestic payments. She has shielded her academic husband – who is on sabbatical and writing a novel – from their financial plight.
Boonstra calls Sandra and the dealing starts, with very high stakes looming as she determines to put up with most of his nastiness in order to get the hefty commission on the sale. Things did not quite work out the way she hoped. Meanwhile the case of the missing student takes on a sinister aspect as Cupido’s investigations reveal a viper’s nest of intrigue and the race is on to rescue the errant computer whizz to save his life. It also sees Griessel and Cupido work together again as their respective talents complement those of the partner.
Deon & Marianne Meyer
As always, one knows that everything from names to descriptions of streets, shops and suburbs of Stellenbosch to police procedure are as accurate as the facts in Meyer’s previous thrillers. Even if I had not recently finished Pieter du Toit’s updated edition of The Stellenbosch Mafia it would not have been difficult to guess who inspired at least one of the unsavoury characters in The Dark Flood.
Myrna Robins, doyenne of South African Wine & Food Writers, Book Reviewer
Read more about Jonathan Ball Publishers – CLICK HERE
