Deon Meyer’s COBRA out in the US tomorrow

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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

KNIGHTLEY & SON shortlisted for Bolton Children’s Fiction Award

Rohan Gavin’s KNIGHTLEY & SON has been shortlisted for the Bolton Children’s Fiction Award. The shortlist includes 5 other books: Charlie Fletcher’s DRAGON SHIELD, Alan Gibbons’ HATE, E.B. Colin’s PYRATE’S BOY, Rebecca Stevens’ VALENTINE JOE and Tom Hoyle’s THIRTEEN. The winner will be selected by a vote by school children, opening in May next year, and announced on 26 June 2015.

Darkus Knightley is not your average thirteen-year-old: ferociously logical, super-smart and with a fondness for tweed, detective work is in his blood. His dad Alan Knightley was London's top private investigator and an expert in crimes too strange for Scotland Yard to handle, but four years ago the unexplained finally caught up with him - and he fell into a mysterious coma. Darkus is determined to follow in his father's footsteps and find out what really happened. But when Alan suddenly wakes up, his memory is wonky and he needs help. The game is afoot for Knightley & Son – with a mystery that gets weirder by the minute, a bestselling book that makes its readers commit terrible crimes, and a sinister organisation known as the Combination…

Rohan Gavin is a screenwriter and author based in London. He is the son of award-winning children's author Jamila Gavin. His second book, KNIGHTLEY & SON: K-9 was published by Bloomsbury earlier this year.

See here for Knightley & Son profiles and case files…

See here for more reviews and a handy reading guide.

Follow Rohan Gavin on Twitter

Tony Park’s DARK HEART out in paperback in the UK today

The “consistently entertaining and thought-provoking” Tony Park’s DARK HEART is published in paperback in the UK today from Quercus. 

During the Rwandan genocide, three foreigners – UN worker Carmel Shang, military doctor Richard Dunlop, and journalist Liesl Nel – were forced to stand by, powerless to prevent the massacre and unable to escape witnessing the horrors.

20 years later, scattered across the world, the wounds of Rwanda still run deep. Now, a tattered photograph that was clutched in the hand of a dying man holds a clue that brings them back together . . . and hides a secret that is making them a target of an assassin.

Hunted through South Africa’s Kruger National Park to Zambia, Australia, and back to Rwanda, the three must bring themselves to confront not just the scars of a nation and a continent, but of their own hearts.

It’s a busy month worldwide for Tony Park. THE DELTA is published in the US on 7 October, and his latest thriller THE HUNTER is published by Macmillan in Australia and South Africa on 14 October and in the UK by Quercus on 16 October. 

 

Praise for TONY PARK:

'An author who is starting to challenge the veteran Wilbur Smith for the title of 'master of the African thriller'' -- Geoffrey Wansell, Daily Mail

'Tony Park is one of Australia's best thriller writers and his African-based novels are consistently entertaining and thought-provoking.' -- Canberra Times

'Park's heroes are tough, blokey types - soldiers and coppers - and his heroines sassy and smart, but Africa always steals the show…a great way to spend a winter evening, transported to somewhere warm and exotic.' -- Georgia Gowing, The Independent Weekly