Benny Griessel

From rising South African thriller writer Deon Meyer, a gripping suspense novel about revenge, forgiveness, and the race to catch a trained killer. A young woman makes a terrible confession to a priest. An honorable man takes his own revenge for an unspeakable tragedy. An aging inspector tries to get himself sober while taking on the most difficult case of his career. From this beginning, Deon Meyer weaves a story of astonishing complexity and suspense, as Inspector Benny Griessel faces off against a dangerous vigilante who has everything on his side, including public sympathy. A gruesome abuse case has hit the newsstands, and one man has taken it upon himself to stand up for the children of Cape Town. When the accused is found stabbed through the heart by spear, it's only the beginning of a string of bloody murders - and of a dangerous dilemma for detective Griessel. The detective is always just one step behind as someone slays the city's killers. But the paths of Griessel and the avenger collide when a young prostitute lures them both into a dangerous plan - and the two find themselves with a heart-stopping problem that no system of justice could ever make right.

As morning dawns in Cape Town, Det. Capt. Benny Griessel finds himself facing a difficult day. A South African music executive has been shot dead. An American teenager's body has been found on the street, her throat cut. And her friend Rachel Anderson is somewhere in the city, terrified and alone, but hopefully still alive. For both cases, time is short and media attention is high. And while the homicide detective has been sober for 156 days, day 157 is going to be a tough one.

Detective Griessel must solve a cold case to stop a shooter in this thriller from the acclaimed South African author. Two police officers have been shot, and the Cape Town homicide department has received emails from the shooter alleging the cover-up of an unsolved murder. If the cold case isn't reopened immediately, the shooter's carnage will continue. Now Det. Capt. Benny Griessel is out to solve the crime in question: the murder of an ambitious lawyer stabbed to death in her luxury apartment. Unfortunately, there's no apparent motive, forensic evidence, or leads. As Griessel races to piece together an investigation with nothing to go on and his colleague, Capt. Mbali Kaleni, attempts to locate the shooter, a third cop becomes the victim of another barrage of bullets. The shooter is growing bolder by the day, and it's only a matter of time before Griessel ends up in his sights.

Celebrated as the 'King of South African crime," Deon Meyer is a world-class writer whose page-turning thrillers probe the social and racial complexities of his native country. In Cobra, a famous English mathematician is kidnapped and his two bodyguards are killed at a guesthouse in the beautiful wine country outside Cape Town. It's clearly a professional hit, and the spent shell cases offer a chilling clue: Each is engraved with the head of a spitting cobra. Meanwhile, in the city, a skilled thief is using his talents to put his sister through college. But he picks the wrong pocket, grabbing the wallet of a young American woman delivering something very valuable and dangerous to South Africa. The thief not only becomes the target of the deadly hit man known as the Cobra, but unwittingly holds the key to stopping a deadly international threat. It's up to Captain Benny Griessel and his elite investigation team to find the pickpocket and track down the Cobra as the novel hurtles toward a brilliant, heart-stopping finale on the suburban commuter trains. Cobra is a first-rate thriller from a writer at the top of his game.

When a plastic-wrapped corpse is found amidst the sand dunes north of Cape Town, it doesn't take long for the police to identify the body as Ernst Richter-the tech whiz behind MyAlibi, an Internet service that provides unfaithful partners with sophisticated cover stories to hide their affairs. The murder quickly becomes the subject of fierce media speculation, with questions swirling about potential motives and perpetrators. Maybe it was one of MyAlibi's countless jilted spouses, or perhaps an aggrieved client. With a spotlight shining on the investigation, detective Benny Griessel's boss wants him on the case-and he won't take no for an answer. Before the week is out, a connection to a storied family winery comes to light and adds another layer of tension. But Griessel will have to make sure his suspicions are beyond the shadow of a doubt-or it might be his head on the chopping block.

Early on a May morning in the depth of South Africa's winter, a woman's naked body, washed in bleach, is discovered on a stone wall beside a highway some thirty-five miles from Cape Town. The local investigation stalls, so the case is referred to Captains Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido of the Hawks-the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations. The woman is an American named Alicia Lewis, an expert in old Dutch Masters paintings specializing in the recovery of valuable lost art. Discovering the two men she had contacted before coming to South Africa reveals what she was seeking-a rare painting by Carel Fabritius, Rembrandt's finest student, not seen since it disappeared from Delft in 1654. But how Lewis died, why, and at whose hand shocks even the two veteran detectives, in this compact jewel of a thriller from a multiple award-winning author.

A cold case reaches from Cape Town's shadowy past to bucolic Bordeaux, France, in this thriller by the Barry Award-winning author of Thirteen Hours. When a cold case dossier lands on Captain Benny Griessel's desk, he and his partner Vaughn Cupido, a fellow member of the Hawks elite police unit in South Africa, reluctantly set to work reviewing the evidence. Did ex-cop Johnson Johnson simply disappear on the world's most luxurious train line-or was he murdered? Two fellow travelers might have the answers Griessel and Cupido need, but they too seem to have disappeared, and the few clues that exist suggest a cover-up. Meanwhile, Daniel Darret has settled into a new, quiet life in Bordeaux, far from his revolutionary past in South Africa. But now a man from that past has reappeared. And he wants to commission Daniel's unique skills one more time. As the two storylines come crashing together, Griessel and Cupido are left uncertain of the truth-and of their own future. A top-notch addition to the acclaimed Benny Griessel series, The Last Hunt makes a brave and powerful statement about the pervasive corruption that has stolen so much from Deon Meyer's native country.

Disappearances ensnare two South African detectives in a web of corruption in this stunning thriller by the award-winning author of “The Last Hunt.” Assigned to investigate the disappearance of a young university student and brilliant computer programmer detectives Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido hit dead ends. But the trail-including the death of a fellow police officer-leads to a series of gun heists and the alarming absence of certain weapons from the police registry, the ramifications of which could be devastating. As Griessel and Cupido intensify their search, real estate agent Sandra Steenberg confronts her own crisis: state corruption has caused the real estate market to crash, exacerbating the dire financial straits facing her family. She puts aside her misgivings to work for a notorious billionaire and playboy, only to have him disappear on her. Now Griessel is forced to juggle between the man's bitter wife, protective lawyer, and Steenberg, the last person to see him alive. With propulsive and intricate plotting, sharp prose, and an ending that takes one's breath away just when the dust seems to have settled, “The Dark Flood” spotlights the state capture and corruption that has overtaken the country, lending political weight to a powerful story.