Cobra - Softcover

Meyer, Deon

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345814916 ISBN 13: 9780345814913

Publisher: Random House Canada, 2015

Synopsis

A new heart-stopping thriller from internationally acclaimed crime writer Deon Meyer.
     Why would a mathematics professor from Cambridge University, renting a holiday home outside Cape Town, require a false identity and 3 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.

About this title

About the Author

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 Volksblad, a daily newspaper in Bloemfontein as a reporter. Before becoming a full-time crime author in 2009 he also worked as press liaison, advertising copywriter, creative director, internet strategist, and brand consultant. In 1994 he published his first Afrikaans novel. All later novels have been translated into 27 languages, including English, French, German, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Russian, Finnish, Czech, Romanian, Slovakian and Bulgarian. The film rights of Thirteen Hours have been sold to an international production company, and most of his other novels have been optioned for movies. Meyer lives near Cape Town.

Review

FINALIST 2015 – CWA International Dagger Award

“Cobra is Meyer's best book yet.” —Die Burger

“Meyer has an almost supernatural ability to know what is going to be topical.” —Andries Wessels, Beeld

“It looks like a mob hit at a safe house on South African farmland, but maybe the murders and murderers are part of a wider global conspiracy somehow involving an English university computer genius privy to Edward Snowden–scale government secrets. Deon Meyer’s Cobra features cops, spies, academics, Soweto pickpockets and ordinary people just trying to get by. All cross paths in a fascinating look at modern South Africa and its multiracial relations, along with some of the snappiest dialogue you’ll encounter these days. Read the glossary of multilingual terms at the back before you start to understand the best lines.” —Winnipeg Free Press

“As if Police Captain Benny Griessel’s life isn’t fraught enough—his advancing years, his AA regimen, his romance with a wealthy woman who’s asking more of Benny than he can deliver—he also draws a kidnapping-cum-murder case that has an international reach. 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.” —Toronto Star

“[D]azzling.” —Jack Batten, Toronto Star

“Start the new year with a passel of spies, spooks and assassins, all spun from the clever mind of South Africa’s best thrillermeister.” —Margaret Cannon, The Globe and Mail

“Mr. Meyer, the leading thriller writer in his native country, traffics in crime-novel situations familiar the world over: drunken cops, charming robbers, dangerous murderers, sudden violence—and sometimes, issues of race. Mr. Meyer’s South Africa, however, is unique. . . . Mr. Meyer’s insider’s view of a rapidly modernizing, multiracial South Africa will be unfamiliar to most U.S. readers.” —Steve Dougherty, The Wall Street Journal

“An astonishing and violent climax. . . . Meyer gives rare insights into the texture of everyday life in a country still troubled 20 years after the release of Nelson Mandela.” —The Sunday Times (South Africa)

“Cobra rattles along at a pleasing rate. When they come, the violent episodes have real impact. . . . [A] novel that’s never less than readable. The South African setting is a major part of the appeal. Best of all, however, is Bernie himself, a humane recovering alcoholic riddled with self-doubt, and his interaction with his family, friends and colleagues. Long may he survive.” —The Spectator (UK)

“The plot clicks along like a machine, more cinematic than usual. . . . The set pieces, such as a complex train-hopping action sequence, are slickly executed. This is an author in full charge of his technique, but he burnishes the mechanics of the story with delicious Kaapse characters and richly idiomatic dialogue. . . . The feral pickpocket Tyrone Kleinbooi is one of Meyer’s best characters ever, sly and quick with a strong sense of thieves’ honour. Meyer has a habit of beckoning side characters to the front of stage in subsequent books. . . . Here’s hoping Meyer will put Mbali Kaleni centre stage in future. . . .  More of Mbali, please, and more, much more of Deon Meyer.” —Michele Magwood, The Sunday Times (South Africa)

“I really loved Cobra. . . . [It] has, I think, all the interest and excitement of Child 44 mixed with Day of the Jackal. It is a good suspenseful thriller, in other words, but includes the fascination of a fractured police team in a malfunctioning society. . . . I found this book really superb. An excellent holiday read, but worth reading when you get back too! . . . I’ll certainly be searching out [Meyer’s] books in future.” —Michael Jecks, writerlywitterings (blog)

“[T]here wasn’t a spare word in the narrative and the reader’s attention doesn’t drift for a second.” —Books LIVE (South Africa)

About this edition

• Publisher: Random House Canada
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0345814916
• ISBN 13: 9780345814913
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352