Icarus

Deon Meyer, South Africa’s preeminent crime fiction writer, is internationally acclaimed for his razor’s-edge thrillers, unforgettable characters, and nuanced portrayals of contemporary life in his native country. The latest pulse-pounder starring Captain Benny Griessel, a lead detective in South Africa’s Priority Crimes Investigation unit, delves into a high-profile murder case and the country’s burgeoning tech and wine industries.

A week before Christmas, a young photographer discovers a plastic-wrapped corpse amidst the sand dunes north of Cape Town. It doesn’t take long for the police to identify the body as that of Ernst Richter—the tech whiz and founder of Alibi, an internet service that provides unfaithful partners with sophisticated cover stories to hide their affairs. Meanwhile, Benny Griessel is called to the scene of a murder-suicide involving a former colleague, and 602 days of sobriety are undone on the spot. He seems determined to drink away his career, but the take-no-sass Major Mbali Kaleni, now his boss, wants Griessel on the Richter case. The murder has already been the subject of fierce media speculation, with questions swirling about the potential for motive: could the perpetrator be one of the countless jilted spouses? An aggrieved client? Before the week is out, an unexpected connection to a troubled family winery comes to light, and Griessel must either quit drinking and close the case, or risk losing everything he loves. Mounting towards a startling conclusion, Icarus is another first-rate novel from the “King of South African Crime.”