Dead Before Dying: A Novel - Hardcover

Hitchcock used to say that one of the ways he made audiences identify with his films was to "put the heroine through it", and the canny South African writer Deon Meyer does just that for his beleaguered hero in this exemplary thriller. After a successful career in the South African police force, Mat Joubert is hitting the skids. When his wife is tragically killed, he takes a sharp downturn into depression. With the twin demons of alcoholism and spiralling weight problems, he's not best equipped to be drawn into the investigation of a serial killer who appears to be murdering at random. But (apart from saving more lives), Mat comes to realise that nailing this killer is his last best hope for reclaiming his own life and exorcising the past.

Utilising his journalistic background with quiet skill, Meyer creates the turbulent politics of an over- stretched police department in a vivid and energetic fashion, while Joubert is a sympathetic protagonist (with more than a touch of one of Graham Greene's under- pressure heroes about him). If the serial killer plot is nothing new, the atmosphere of a hot, turbulent country is very vividly evoked and the characterisation is dynamic enough to make the familiar plot come up as fresh as paint in the rainbow colours of the new South Africa. A striking debut novel. --Barry Forshaw

An impressively tangled web and taut narrative keeps the reader guessing until the last couple of pages (Heat***)

A plot-driven page-turner...Joubert is a haunted yet sympathetic protagonist (Bookpage)

Meyer subtly juxtaposes the heartbreak of the victims' families with the heartbroken detective assigned to their cases. Using humour and pathos in equal measure, Meyer builds a deeply moving portrait of a man in search of his own dignity (Booklist (Starred Review))

The atmosphere of a hot, turbulent country is very vividly evoked, and the characterisation is dynamic enough to make the familiar plot come up as fresh as paint. A striking debut novel (Crime Time)

Hooked me right from the start...a thriller with some weight attached and that is a rare find (Michael Connelly on HEART OF THE HUNTER)

Out of post-apartheid South Africa comes a thriller good enough to nip at the heels of le Carré ... Wonderful setting; rich, colourful cast (Kirkus Reviews*, on HEART OF THE HUNTER)

A brilliant book. Deon Meyer does an excellent job of developing a whole range of characters who are affected by the changes in South Africa in different ways. And Thobela, a giant of a man in search of redemption, is a wonderful hero. (Michael Ridpath, author of THE PREDATOR, on HEART OF THE HUNTER)

Like post-war Germany, post-apartheid South Africa offers fertile ground for reflective fiction ... Senior editor at Little, Brown, Judy Clain, a fellow South African, says, "Meyer has an extraordinary landscape - a changed world where the ghosts of the past play a huge role." (Publishers Weekly, on HEART OF THE HUNTER)

With simmering racial tensions, a bounty of natural resources, and a government whose members worked both sides of the cold-war fence, South Africa should prove fertile ground for many fine spy thrillers to come. Don't be surprised if quite a few of them are written by Meyer. (Booklist*, on HEART OF THE HUNTER)