BLOOD SAFARI
By Deon Meyer, Random House Canada, 352 pages, $29.95
Every so often I pick up a book and simply devour it from first page to final paragraph. Blood Safari is one of those. It packs in South African history, culture, complexities and a finely woven plot, and even manages a very sweet little romance. If you're looking for a weekend escape, this is your frigate.
It's high noon on Christmas Day, and the temperature is a sweltering 38 degrees. Lemmer is swinging a sledgehammer against a wall in his house in Loxton, a village in the rural Transvaal, when he is contacted by his boss, Jeanette Louw, head of Body Armour bodyguard services. She has a client, a young woman in Cape Town who has been the victim of a home invasion. Lemmer is on the clock.
The client is Emma le Roux, beautiful, intelligent, rich and seemingly without an enemy in the world, except for the three masked men who broke into her well-secured home and chased her half-naked into a neighbour's yard.
The only unusual item in Emma's recent past is a glance at a television screen, where she saw a man who resembled her long-lost brother, Jacobus. The man on the news was wanted by the police for murdering four game poachers who had poisoned a dozen vultures. She called the police and was assured that the wanted man was one Cobie de Villiers, no relation.
But Emma is persistent. She wants to head up to the area next to the Kruger Game Park and speak to the police herself. And she wants Lemmer to go with her.
That's just the opening chapter of this brilliant book that takes us into the riven heart of South Africa where tribal loyalties, including those of the “White Tribe,” are in conflict, and where reconciliation is still a hope rather than a reality. The heart of the mystery is a truly evil bit of forgotten history, and Meyer makes it live again in a chilling description.
This is a book that both takes you away and makes you think, but most of all, it's a wonderful bit of masterful storytelling, with a gorgeous setting and complex, original characters. Meyer is the latest addition to Random House Canada's World of Crime imprint, which is turning into a treasure trove of great writing.
LIFE SENTENCES
By Laura Lippman, Morrow, 352 pages, $32.99
Laura Lippman is one of the top handful of American crime authors today, right up there with Harlan Coben, James Lee Burke and Michael Connelly. And if you don't believe me, just read Life Sentences , one of the best books I've read in years.
The setting is, as always for Lippman, Baltimore, that beautiful, crumbling city. The protagonist is Cassandra Fallows, a famous and moderately wealthy author. Her specialty is the personal memoir and her hottest bestseller was an account of her childhood, called Her Father's Daughter, a deeply affecting account of her father's abandonment of her and her mother.
But Cassandra's latest book, a fictional homage to The Secret Garden , isn't doing as well. Her fans want more of her life, but just where does Cassandra Fallows go when her life, comfortable and secure, isn't very exciting?
But there is someone in Cassandra's past who is worthy of a book. Long ago there was a group of girls in Baltimore who were best friends. On the edge of that group was Calliope Jenkins, whose infant son disappeared and who went to prison for seven years, refusing to co-operate with police or to tell anyone where the child was or even if he was dead or alive.
That was 20 years ago, and now a new missing child has brought the old case back into the media. Cassandra can go back to Baltimore and find Callie Jenkins and write a personal examination of the case, even get it reopened, explain Callie's inexplicable behaviour and link it all to her own personal history. It's a sure bestseller.
