Sunday, September 30, 2012

BOOK: Seven Days by Deon Meyer

Seven Days by Deon Meyer, 352 pages

RIP 7; review copy from RandomHouse Canada

Benny Griessel gets a little more time in this installment of detecting from South Africa. Last time he only had Thirteen Hours, this time he has a week! He his still sober, but has recently been assigned to The Hawks, a division within the police corps, which is more political.  Unfortunately, he gets assigned a cold case, but under direct pressure from a sniper, who publicly plans to shoot a police officer a day until the case is solved. That's a lot of pressure for a guy just getting his life straightened out. A new relationship with a famous singer struggling with her own sobriety just adds to the pressure.

I've already gone on and on about how much I am enjoying Deon Meyer's police books. Luckily I still have a few older books to read. Seven Days is the latest release, and since Benny is my favorite of his detectives, I was very pleased. The characterization, the plot, and the action makes Meyer's books very satisfying. The endings in this book to both crimes (the cold case and the sniper) were surprising, but were also famous endings from other mystery books that I've read. (I won't let on which they were, but they are the kind of resolution that you don't forget!)