Benny Griessel is back! Deon Meyer’s latest novel COBRA is published in the US tomorrow by Grove Atlantic.
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…
COBRA was chosen by Publisher’s Weekly as one of the Top Ten Mystery and Thriller for Fall and ‘Thriller of the Week’ on the very popular Dutch thriller & crime fiction communityCrimezone.nl. In his home territory South Africa, COBRA (published in Afrikaans by Human & Rousseau as KOBRA) shot to Number 1 on Afrikaans publication last year, beating off all international competition in English as well.
The Wall Street Journal recently ran a profile of Deon, with an extract from the novel and handy glossary of Afrikaans terms included.
Deon is currently touring in France and will then proceed to Germany. You can find out where he’ll be visiting on his website, and follow him on Twitter for pictures from the tour.
10 international publishers have signed up to COBRA with new deals regularly signed for ‘The best crime writer on the planet’ across the globe. COBRA was published in the UK by Hodder earlier this year, and in South Africa by Jonathan Ball.
Praise for COBRA:
‘A masterful new thriller. This is terrific stuff: fine plotting, superb characterisation, a constant thread of suspense, a multi-ethnic cast and an intriguing setting. It also comes with a glossary of South African terms and if COBRA doesn’t win at least one major prize this year, then someone needs a good snotskoot blikseming.’ – Mike Ripley, Shotsmag
‘The plot clicks along like a machine… 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, SA Sunday Times
Praise for Deon Meyer:
‘A master on vintage form… He is a defining novelist of modern South Africa.’ – Barry Forshaw, Books of the Year 2012, Independent
‘Deon Meyer is one of the best crime writers on the planet.’ – Mail on Sunday
'With Deon Meyer you can't go wrong. He's a writer whose work I admire, wait for and then devour.' -- Michael Connelly