African Peoples & Cultures - Fiction & Literature, Thrillers, Crime Fiction
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Overview
Lemmer is a professional bodyguard. Silent, invisible, he never gets involved. Emma le Roux is convinced she’s seen her brother on the news as a suspect in the recent killing of four poachers. But her brother is supposed to have died twenty years ago.When le Roux hires Lemmer to watch her back while she goes looking for answers, it becomes clear someone wants to keep them in the dark. And when that someone tries to murder them both, for once in his life Lemmer steps out of the shadows.
Synopsis
"Lemmer is a freelance bodyguard for Body Armor, a personal security company in South Africa. Lean, angry, violent, he is way down on the price list where the bargains are to be found." "Emma le Roux wants to find her missing brother, who supposedly died twenty years ago, but whom she is convinced she's seen on the news as a suspect in the recent killing of a witch doctor and four poachers. She hires Lemmer to watch her back when she goes looking for answers." As le Roux and Lemmer look for clues in the Lowveld, it becomes clear someone wants to keep them in the dark. Someone who will go to any lengths to stop them asking questions. When they are attacked and almost killed, Lemmer decides to go after whoever is hunting them - against all odds.
The Washington Post - Patrick Anderson
Deon Meyer's novels explore the complex reality of South Africa, a world little known to many of us. At the most obvious level, they are exciting stories of crime, conflict and revenge, but they are more than that: ambitious attempts to show us the pain and greatness of a troubled nation that is still being born…Meyer is a serious writer who richly deserves the international reputation he has built. Blood Safari manages to be both an exciting read and an eye-opening portrait of a nation with problems perhaps even more complex and agonizing than our own.
Editorials
Patrick Anderson
Deon Meyer's novels explore the complex reality of South Africa, a world little known to many of us. At the most obvious level, they are exciting stories of crime, conflict and revenge, but they are more than that: ambitious attempts to show us the pain and greatness of a troubled nation that is still being born…Meyer is a serious writer who richly deserves the international reputation he has built. Blood Safari manages to be both an exciting read and an eye-opening portrait of a nation with problems perhaps even more complex and agonizing than our own.—The Washington Post
Publishers Weekly
Set mainly in the game preserves of South Africa, Meyer's stellar stand-alone thriller delivers muscular prose with a hero to match. When three masked men break into the Cape Town home of Emma le Roux on Christmas Eve, Emma manages to escape over the wall into her neighbor's yard. Emma fears the attack may be connected to recent evidence that her brother, Jacobus, who she thought died 20 years before while serving as a temporary game ranger, is actually alive. She hires professional bodyguard Martin Lemmer to protect her while she investigates. Lemmer is a true original, tough, with a checkered past, a restless inquiring mind and the skills to thwart the masked thugs who are determined to kill his client. After Emma is severely injured, Lemmer goes on the offensive, bent on revenge and determined to solve the ever-widening mystery that threatens to kill them both. Once again, Meyer (Devil's Peak) shows he's a writer not to be missed. (Sept.)Library Journal
When Emma le Roux, a wealthy Cape Town advertising consultant, sees a TV photo of a man wanted for murder, she believes it is her brother, who disappeared 20 years earlier in Kruger National Park. After barely eluding three armed thugs who invade her house, she hires Lemer, a professional bodyguard. In ten years he's never lost a client, so when Emma is shot and left in a coma, Lemer seeks revenge. This leads to encounters in the veld with game rangers, more deaths, and angry police and officials in high places who go to extremes to prevent his discovering decades-old secrets. Like fellow South African crime writer James McClure, Meyer (Heart of the Hunter) is skilled at creating memorable black and white characters while also bluntly depicting the violent past that affects modern South Africa. In his fifth novel, he draws on his experience as a reporter to present striking characters and vivid African settings and to provide an honest look at South Africa's troubled political history. VERDICT Full of page-turning tension, this will strongly appeal to mystery and suspense fans seeking intelligent, hard-boiled action. Readers who like their crime fiction in exotic locations may also enjoy this excellent thriller. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 5/15/09; a best seller in South Africa and Germany, Blood Safari won the Inaugural ATKV (South Africa) Prize for Best Suspense Fiction.—Ed.]—Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., CarbondaleKirkus Reviews
Top-notch thriller from South African Meyer (Devil's Peak, 2008, etc.) about a young woman's desperate search for her dead brother. More than 20 years ago, 14-year-old Emma le Roux suffered the wiping out of her loving family. First her adored soldier brother Jacobus disappeared somewhere in the vast wilds of Kruger National Park while chasing poachers, then her parents were killed in a car crash. By the time she hires narrator/protagonist Lemmer to protect her from unknown assailants, gutsy Emma has overcome grief and bereavement to become a lovely, successful career woman, brand consultant to major corporations. Lemmer (he hates his first name) is a professional bodyguard employed by a leading executive-security firm called Body Armor. Emma seeks his help as the result of a chain of events both sudden and terrifyingly inexplicable. Three days ago on Cape Town television, she tells Lemmer, she saw a photo of a certain Jacobus de Villiers. After factoring in the passage of time, she decided that he was a look-alike for Jacobus de Roux and that reports of her brother's death had been meretriciously exaggerated. She asked questions, then someone tried to murder her. Is this cause and effect she thinks it is? Are there uncomfortable secrets powerful people would prefer to keep buried? Cool, tight-lipped Lemmer, hiding his own uncomfortable secrets, has no answers for Emma. What he does have, however, will prove considerably more useful as her dangerous investigation intensifies. It's commitment. Unswerving and total. For tough, skilled, resourceful Lemmer, the very template of a modern-day warrior, has fallen in love. Overplotted as usual, but when Meyer gets the people right, as he doeshere, he's hard to beat. Agent: Richard Pine/InkWell Management LLCGuardian
“Meyer, who writes in Afrikaans, is far and away the best crime writer in South Africa. The action is as exciting as any reader of thrillers has a right to demand. The writing is fluent and coherent and full of insight into the problems of South Africa. As Meyer writes, money and poverty and greed do not lie well together. But they make a hell of a thriller.”—Matthew Lewin, Guardian
— Matthew Lewin
The Sunday Times
“Pulsating and gripping.”—The Sunday Times
Business Day
“Blood Safari is my first exposure to the man billed by his publishers as the 'king of South African crime thrillers'. For once the publicity spinners are not guilty of hyperbole—Meyer is simply excellent.”— Business Day
Washington Post
“Meyer is a serious writer who richly deserves the international reputation he has built. Blood Safari manages to be both an exciting read and an eye-opening portrait of a nation with problems perhaps even more complex and agonizing than our own.”—Washington Post
Seeing the World Through Books
“The action comes fast and furious . . . a terrific and unusual thriller, the fifth of Meyer’s novels . . . each of which has been better than the last.”—Mary Whipple, Seeing the World Through Books
— Mary Whipple
Madison County Herald
“South African bestseller Deon Meyer’s greatest strength lies in his keen ability to create flawed characters clawing their way towards personal redemption . . . Deon Meyer is hot property . . . exotic locales, searing prose, and a protagonist who flies off the pages.”— Madison County Herald
Booklist
“In his signature style, Meyer delivers a stinging critique of contemporary South African society by vivifying the tensions between native Africans, conservationists, and corporate profiteers...the crisp action scenes are never less than thrilling. A solid addition to the prizewinning crime novelist’s growing body of work.”— Booklist
Miami Herald
“Deon Meyer's novels explore the complex reality of South Africa, a world little known to many of us. At the most obvious level, they are exciting stories of crime, conflict and revenge, but they are more than that: ambitious attempts to show us the pain and greatness of a troubled nation that is still being born.”— Miami Herald
Guardian
“Meyer, who writes in Afrikaans, is far and away the best crime writer in South Africa. The action is as exciting as any reader of thrillers has a right to demand. The writing is fluent and coherent and full of insight into the problems of South Africa. As Meyer writes, money and poverty and greed do not lie well together. But they make a hell of a thriller.”—Matthew Lewin, Guardian
Seeing the World Through Books
“The action comes fast and furious . . . a terrific and unusual thriller, the fifth of Meyer’s novels . . . each of which has been better than the last.”—Mary Whipple, Seeing the World Through Books
NPR The World
“A big, sexy novel . . . two compelling characters, Lemmer and Emma le Roux—but there’s another character and that’s contemporary South Africa itself. You’ve got race, reconciliation, resentment, environment, tourism—they’re all propelling this novel along.”—The World, NPR
Book Details
Published
September 1, 2010
Publisher
Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Pages
400
Format
Mass Market Paperback
ISBN
9780802145062