More darkness out of post-apartheid South Africa, but after a
sizzling debut, Meyer's second disappoints. It's that pesky
protagonist problem. With Thobela Mpayipheli, black, ex-freedom
fighter, Meyer got it right in Heart of the Hunter (2004). With Zat
van Heerden, white ex-cop, he doesn't. Thobela is all about action,
purpose, narrative drive. Zat, on the other hand, throbs with angst
and wallows in introspection, both of which will hamper pace and
hamstring thrillers every time. Zat is in a bad way when first we
meet him as a self-hating borderline alcoholic. He does, however,
have at least one long-suffering friend. Kemp guides Zat to Hope
Beneke, an attractive young lawyer who needs an experienced
investigator, a description that would have fit Zat tidily before
he messed himself up. (How and why is exhaustively rendered in
flashbacks that also hamper pace.) Hope's client is the surviving
significant other of a brutally murdered millionaire. In the
process, Jan Smit's safe was robbed of everything in it, including
the will that left the bulk of his estate to the deserving Wilna
van As. Without it, lock, stock and barrel goes to the government.
Zat's charge-find and retrieve the will before the final sitting of
the Master's Supreme Court in exactly one week. Zat knows, of
course, that the task isn't going to be easy. What he can't know is
how wild the complications will become when, as it soon turns out,
Jan Smit isn't-and never was-Jan Smit. Well, then, who was he?
That's the kind of secret hard men on both sides of the law will do
just about anything to keep hidden. But Zat buckles down, chasing
the missing will and his own redemption simultaneously. A step back
then, but enough flashes of real talent to hope for better from his
next. (Kirkus Reviews)
An antiques dealer is burned with a blow torch, then killed,
execution-style - a single shot to the back of the head with an
M16. The contents of the safe are missing and the only clues are a
scrap of blank paper and the unusual weapon used, the choice of
mercenaries, not burglars. Now ex-cop Zatopek 'Zed' van Heerden has
fourteen days in which to fill in the blanks in this dead man's
past - a past which only seems to begin in 1983...Set against the
backdrop of a society on the verge of breakdown, "Dead at Daybreak"
spins the reader from the lush suburbs of Capetown, to a gripping
climax in the searing heat of the Veldt.
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