Devil's Peak

September 24, 2012
Meyer’s superbly crafted South African thriller follows the interconnected lives of three characters: Christine van Rooyen, a beautiful but luckless Capetown prostitute who gets on the bad side of the brother of a Colombian drug lord; Thobela Mpayipheli, a former mercenary whose retirement ends with the murder of his eight-year-old son; and veteran police inspector Benny Griessel, an alcoholic burnout struggling to regain sobriety and the respect of his family and co-workers. Narrator Simon Vance turns in a successful performance in this audio edition. When Benny’s mood swings from despair to hope, Vance’s hoarse croak reflects the changes. Similarly, the narrator’s rendition of Thobela changes from an initial paternal cheeriness when speaking with his son to despair at the boy’s death and stoic flatness as he sets out on his quest for vengeance. Emotions run high throughout, and Vance successfully conveys every moment of despair and elation. But it’s near the novel’s end—when the plot strands connect in a suspenseful and violent confrontation—that Vance pulls out all the stops, adding a notable finishing touch to this compelling presentation.

March 15, 2008
In his fourth thriller set in and around Cape Town, South African crime writer Meyer interweaves the stories of three desperate individuals. Thobela Mpayipheli, a former Xhosa assassin last seen in "Heart of the Hunter", is unable to stop two gas station thieves from killing his stepson. Driven by vengeance and armed only with an "assegai" (a spear), he begins to track down the thieves. Unsuccessful at first, he expands his crusade to include those suspected of sexual crimes against children. As the bloody killings mount, Detective Inspector Benny Griessel, an alcoholic determined to stay sober in order to win back his wife and children, is assigned the "assegai" case. Meanwhile, Christine van Rooyen, a prostitute with a young daughter, tells a clergyman how she became involved with the local boss of a Colombian drug cartel. In time, the lives of all three will collide with devastating results. Readers will need a measure of patience to handle the quick jumps between stories and the half-page or so that it takes to figure out whose story is now center stage. Still, Meyer's ability to probe the depths of his major characters makes this read well worth the effort. Recommended for public libraries.Ron Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tuscon

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 15, 2008
A former counterintelligence operative for the anti-apartheid movement, Thobela Mpayipheli, featured inMeyers excellent Heart of the Hunter (2004), has shed his violent past to become a loving father to his adopted son. That all changes the day his son is killed in a botched robbery, and the killers escape from jail. Thobela cannot allow the injustice of his sons murder to go unpunished, for in a country where the systemroutinely fails, Thobela feels deeply that somebodyhas to take a stand.While hunting for the killers, he also begins murdering pedophiles, stabbing them through the heart with an assegai, theweapon favored by his Xhosa ancestors. As his popularitygrows in Cape Town, the police come under increasing pressure to capture him. Inspector Benny Griessel, struggling to overcome his alcoholism, dedicates himself entirely to the case. Meanwhile, a young prostitute comes up with a plan to extricate herself and her daughter from the life, a plan that will put the three principals on a collision course. Meyer weds histaut plot to deeper social issues and to flawed but compelling characters in a novel that is almost unbearably suspenseful.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)