Synopsis: 'A famous English mathematician is kidnapped and his two bodyguards are killed at a guesthouse outside of 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 and becomes the target of the Cobra. It's up to Captain Benny Griessel and his elite investigation team to find the pickpocket, solve the murder, and track down the Cobra before it's too late.' From the book cover
Review: Good story, interesting characters, and a fairly good ending. I do like the mixture of languages that come through in the dialogue. ( )

Two bodyguards and a hotel worker are killed, and their charge (a Cambridge University professor involved in detecting terrorist financing) goes missing. Captain Benny Griessel, now part of the elite Hawks corps (of the South African Police Service) is called to investigate, and quickly determines the involvement of a professional killer. Shell casings marked with a cobra are linked to an assassin for hire by Interpol. Meanwhile, a young pickpocket (Tyrone) trying to support his sister, unknowingly steals the ransom, leading to another killing spree. But Tyrone is angered by their kidnapping of his innocent sister, and he goes off to settle things himself. Meyer has superb, but flawed characters, the now sober Benny, his new love interest/musician Alexa, the always serious female Captain Mbali, his boss Colonel Nyathi. Another excellent one by this South African author, relatively unknown here in the U.S. Highly recommended. ( )

I loved this book. Past paced, interesting plot, a good mixture of different characters. I also loved the addition of couleur locale by using Afrikaans or Zulu in the text, making sure that the words are traceable in the list of words in the back of the book.
I like it that the human sides of the characters are taken into the story, but without overshadowing the story as a whole. It reminds me of how Mankell did it in His Wallander series. ( )

Man, I love Deon Meyer's books. What a fantastic series. ( )

One of Deon Meyer's best - crime in post-apartheid South Africa, with Detective Benny Griessel and his colleagues, under-staffed, under-paid and dodging the challenges from various political factions. Written with a generous sprinkling of the local humour and vernacular. Beautifully translated from Afrikaans. Murder in the winelands - who done it and why? Clever use of modern technology required to catch the bad guy (guys)! A cracking read, couldn't put the book down. ( )