March 4, 2019
In Meyer’s enjoyable if slight work, the sixth outing for all-too-human Capt. Benny Griessel of South Africa’s Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations (after 2015’s Icarus), a woman’s bleached and nude corpse turns up outside Cape Town. No clothing or possessions were nearby, and the pathologist determines that she died elsewhere, killed by a blow to the back of her head. Griessel catches a break when a hotel concierge recognizes the dead woman as Alicia Lewis, an American who was living in London. Further digging reveals that Lewis was a case manager for the Art Loss Register, a firm that maintained “the largest private database of lost and stolen art in the world,” and which searched for missing art. History professor Marius Wilke, who met Lewis when she came to South Africa, informs Griessel that she was in search of a painting, possibly worth $100 million, by one of Rembrandt’s protégés. Strong characterizations, even of secondary characters, compensate for a whodunit plot that isn’t Meyer’s best. Hopefully, he’ll return to form next time. Agent: Richard Pine, Inkwell Management.
March 1, 2019
A dead woman stripped naked and draped over a stone wall poses vexing problems for Capt. Benny Griessel and Capt. Vaughn Cupido, of Cape Town's Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations (Icarus, 2015, etc.).Even before it's identified, the corpse, bashed to death elsewhere and washed thoroughly with bleach, rings alarm bells for Griessel, whose mind is focused less on his job than on the 22,000 rand he'll have to borrow if he's to buy a proper (though pawned and possibly stolen) engagement ring for former singing star Alexa Barnard, who's plotting a comeback despite the alcoholism she shares with Griessel. Once it becomes known that the victim was Alicia Lewis, an American visitor who took a sabbatical from her job with a London art-recovery company to come to South Africa and was murdered in record time after her arrival, the police are under intense pressure to close the case. Why was the foreign visitor so interested in getting directions to the nondescript town of Villiersdorp? What was she doing that got her killed so quickly after her arrival? And why, in the name of self-preservation and common decency, didn't her killer take more care to conceal her body instead of displaying it so brazenly that it was immediately spotted by a minibus carrying a dozen horrified workers to jobs in the city? Before these questions are answered, they'll lead to even more questions about a painting that's been lost for 350 years and a plot that brings the respectable Alicia Lewis into imprudently close contact with some truly shady characters.Though it's light on the critical analysis of race relations that helped make Meyer's earlier Cape Town mysteries hefty in every sense of the word, this gemlike novella is just the thing for a one-sitting read.
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April 1, 2019
A priceless work of art is at the heart of Meyer's latest thriller. When the naked, bleach-doused body of a woman found outside Cape Town turns out to be an American, Alicia Lewis, the case goes to the elite investigative unit called the Hawks, specifically to Captain Benny Griessel and his colleague Vaughn Cupido. Based on early evidence, Cupido has a theory about the murder, but when further investigation reveals that Lewis was one of the world's leading experts on Dutch Masters painters and experienced at recovering lost and stolen art, the case takes on a new dimension. It's possible that a near-mythical (fictional) painting called The Woman in the Blue Cloak, by Carel Fabritius, Rembrandt's star pupil, who died in an explosion in Delft in 1654, actually exists and is in South Africa, thus explaining Lewis' reason for being in the country. Along the way, Cupido bemoans gaining weight and questions his partner's desire to get married, while Griessel worries about how to pay for a suitable engagement ring. This novella-length tale is a worthy addition to the Benny Griessel series.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)