A striking debut novel.- Crime TimeĪ plot-driven page-turner. The atmosphere of a hot, turbulent country is very vividly evoked, and the characterisation is dynamic. Using humour and pathos in equal measure, Meyer builds a deeply moving portrait of a man in search of his own dignity.- Booklist Meyer subtly juxtaposes the heartbreak of the victims' families with the heartbroken detective assigned to their cases.

Mat throws himself into the case, viewing it as his last chance for redemption.īut, as their shared desire for revenge threatens to destroy both him and the mysterious killer he is hunting, Mat soon learns that he is not the only one with ghosts to lay to rest. Then a new killer appears on the streets of Cape Town, murdering at random. Alcoholic, depressed and overweight, he is a shadow of his former self. Then his wife was murdered, and his hopes died with her. Mat Joubert, once a rising star of the South African police force, had it all. “Dead Before Dying” is an excellent character-driven fable of fractured lives and the inner strength that gives one the ability to either climb out of the abyss or to become one with the darkness.ONE COP. The prose crackles with an original intensity that never stalls from the first murder to the unexpected ending. Though Meyer’s tales are continents away, crime, race and dirty politics are still the same. He’s also caught up in a curious string of bank robberies orchestrated by an overly polite chameleon whose disguises change with each branch.Īs the murder list and bank holdups increase – de Wit and the over-eager media threatening his every move – the slowly resurrecting cop realizes “you can take Joubert out of the dark but you can’t take the dark out of Joubert.” A long-buried secret about his dead wife is about to surface, and the outcome may be lethal. Joubert distills his rusty investigative skills with weekly visits to his new therapist while dodging advances from his neighbor’s lusty teenage daughter. The killer’s even using the original and very powerful bullets. Men, seemingly unknown to one another, are being murdered with a century-old German handgun. When diets and mental health regimens are recommended, many of Joubert’s comrades begin to fall by the wayside.īut a new series of crimes has the overweight and insecure Joubert beginning to feel like his old persona again.

The ever-intimidating Bart de Wit wants his Murder and Robbery detectives fit, both physically and mentally. His new commanding officer is about to change all that. Joubert has been in an abusive relationship with booze, cigarettes, overeating and self-loathing.

It’s been a little over two years since Joubert’s wife (an officer herself) was killed in the line of duty. Set in post-apartheid Cape Town, “Dead Before Dying” places us in an uncomfortable interrogation room with police captain Mat Joubert, a man who can’t escape his tragic past.

Dead before dying by deon meyer