Benny Griessel is back! Tomorrow, Deon Meyer’s latest novel COBRA is published in paperback in the UK by Hodder.
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…
Read the first chapter of COBRA here.
Hear Deon Meyer introduce you to his hero Benny Griessel here.
You can read what his editor Nick Sayers has to say about the novels, and test your Afrikaans, here.
COBRA has been selected for Elle Magazine’s Prix de Lectrices Prize 2015, and shortlisted for the CWA International Dagger 2015, which will be announced at the CWA dinner in London on 30 June, marking the end of National Crime Reading Month. It was also 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 community Crimezone.nl. When initially released in his home territory of South Africa, COBRA (published in Afrikaans by Human & Rousseau as KOBRA) shot to Number 1 on Afrikaans publication, beating off all international competition in English as well.
His new novel, ICARUS (published in Afrikaans by Human & Rousseau as IKARUS) has also held the Number 1 spot in South Africa for several weeks and is set to be released in English on August 27th 2015 in the UK and on October 6th 2015 in the US.
COBRA was published last year in France and Germany and has since been signed by more than a dozen more international publishers. Deon will be at the Salerno festival in June and in October will be on tour in Europe visiting Holland, Germany, and Poland among other places.
Mike Ripley from Shotsmag has nothing but 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.’
More Praise for COBRA:
‘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
“Nothing takes you further into the heart of South Africa than a Deon Meyer crime novel, the beating heart of its hopes and disappointments.” – L’Hebdo
Visit Deon's website here.
Follow Deon on Twitter.
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
‘Meyer is brilliant at suspense, a skill that is coupled with beguilingly unabashed social commentary.’ – William Saunderson-Meyer, The Times (SA)
'With Deon Meyer you can't go wrong. He's a writer whose work I admire, wait for and then devour.' -- Michael Connelly
