7 Days by Deon Meyer
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Blurb: Shortly after the South African Police Services receive this threatening email, a policeman is shot by a sniper and recovering alcoholic Benny Griessel is ordered to reopen the Sloet case. Hanneke Sloet was a sensual and ambitious lawyer. At the time of her murder she was working on one of the biggest Black Empowerment deals in South African history. She was found dead in her luxury Cape Town apartment, a single stab wound to her chest. After forty days, the trail has gone cold. The first investigation could find no motive and no leads, only a set of nude photographs, an ex-boyfriend with a rock-solid alibi, conniving attorneys and financial double-dealing. Benny has to deal with immense pressure from his superiors, the media and the unfathomable sniper, whose emails keep coming and who won’t stop shooting. And then there’s Benny’s love interest, former pop sensation Alexa Barnard, who is also trying to rebuild her life after the ravages of alcohol, and Benny has to make sure she stays sober for her comeback. At the same time, Benny’s feisty colleague, Captain Mbali Kaleni, is hunting the shooter, trying desperately to find what connects him to Hanneke Sloet. Both Benny and Mbali are about to endure seven days of hell. (Hodder, 2013)
Joan Smith, The Sunday Times
“Tense and fast-paced, this has an unsettling denouement.”
Barry Forshaw, The Independent
“Briefer and more accelerando than usual, this is a Meyer novel with far less hefty dramatis personae than usual. But there is no gainsaying the sheer momentum of the storytelling. And there is a key thing to praise in 7 Days (translated from the Afrikaans by KL Seegers): how does Meyer manage to make the hoariest cliché of crime fiction – the alcoholic copper – read as if we’ve never encountered this device?”
Andrew Taylor, The Spectator
“Though the damaged series detective is a familiar figure in crime fiction, Meyer is far too good a writer for this to matter. Griessel is very much his own man, juggling the demands of his career with those of his equally testing private life. The narrative is well-plotted, and the novel brings to life the rich and volatile diversity of contemporary South Africa. There’s nothing flashy here, just a good story, very well told. Would there were more like it.”
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