Note: Thirteen Hours was WINNER of the AKTV Prize in South Africa for Best Suspense Fiction of 2009. It is also the first Afrikaans-written novel to be SHORTLISTED for the prestigious CWA International Dagger Award for 2010.
“I don’t discriminate, I sleep with whoever I want, because it’s the New South Africa, but you don’t want to know about that. You want to ‘brother’ and ‘sister’ us all. You want us to be a separate tribe, us coloureds; you’re the kind who goes around complaining how hard it is to be a coloured…If you don’t integrate, you won’t. That’s the trouble with this country, everyone wants to complain, nobody wants to do anything, nobody wants to forget the past.”—“Coloured” woman to white policeman.
In his best and most complex novel yet, Afrikaans-writer Deon Meyer recreates a mere thirteen hours of life in Cape Town, South Africa, hour by terrifying hour, and those thirteen hours reveal more about the city’s many criminal cultures than you may want to know. The police are only partially effective. Following scandals which plagued the police department and resulted in 
corruption convictions for some key officers, the National Commissioner has established a new police force, the South African Police Service (SAPS), retaining their best and most experienced officers within new departments, the duties of which are not always clear. As one of the force’s best detectives says, “I’ve been working with the Provincial Task Force for four months now, and I still don’t have a portfolio. No people, no job description…I’m getting too old for all the Commissioner’s monkey business, the racial quotas that change every year; everything is politicized. And if Zuma becomes President, the Xhosas will be out and the Zulus will be in and everything will change again—a new hierarchy, new agenda, new troubles.”
Racial differences, tribal differences, and changing historical roles add to the complexities here as good people try to prevent crimes in a fraught environment in which the Metro Police, considered by SAPS to be “traffic cops,” are also flexing muscles over control. Further complicating the issues, many experienced former police are now working for private security firms, hired out to do some of the same jobs as the police.
Captain Benny Griessel, a long-time police officer, now working for SAPS, has been assigned to mentor several new officers, all in their thirties—four blacks, one black woman, and one “coloured.” Integration of the police is a top priority, and it is Benny’s job to see that they all get the maximum possible experience dealing with a multitude of issues from murder to drug trafficking, graft, extortion, and embezzlement.
Meyer involves his reader in the action from the opening pages, in which a young girl, still in her teens, is tearing through the city, begging for help from people she sees, as she tries to escape five or six young men who are pursuing her. And she’s the lucky one. Her companion, who was also trying to escape, was not so fast. She lies dead, her throat slit and her backpack stolen. Benny and his staff are assigned to this case, and soon have their worst fears realized. The young victim was an American tourist, with all the governmental complications that entails on all levels. At the same time, the body of a music executive, shot in the head with his own gun, is found at home near his wife, an alcoholic who knows of his flagrant affairs and who has been lying passed out for hours. She appears to have shot him. These separate stories interrupt each other throughout the novel as more information is revealed about each crime in the course of the day, and as the police officers being mentored participate in the investigations, often taking the initiative and pursuing leads on their own, sometimes clumsily. The author keeps the suspense at fever pitch, as Rachel Anderson, the girl trying to escape, manages to evade discovery for many hours as she races through the areas around Table Mountain, and as Benny Griessel tries to keep all the leads for two separate cases, and all the investigating officers, going in the right direction.
The main characters’ own
backgrounds and family lives unfold and add depth to the novel, showing how they live, for better or worse, in the newly integrated society. Because the crimes here are endemic to other countries, the focus is on how the police solve them, the research they do, the assumptions they make, the directions they take, and the risks they are willing to take for justice. As the novel develops further, the ins and outs of the not-always-honest music business, the roles of Russian owners and managers of clubs and bars, the weaknesses of police officers who may be offered enormous bribes, illegal immigration from other African countries whose governments are in total disarray, the problems of a drug culture, and the corruption which seems to be an unfortunate natural result of power all appear as themes and plot lines. As one old white man says, “The Afrikaners’…power corrupted them. The signs are there that the black government is going the same way. I am afraid they will make the same mistakes. It would be such a pity. We are a country of potential, of wonderful, good people who all want only one thing: a future for our children. Here. Not in Canada.”
As always, Deon Meyer has turned an exciting mystery into a heart-pounding thriller with an over-the-top conclusion, but he also has a great deal to say about his country. Despite the darkness which is evident in its plot, Meyer honors people of all races–Benny Griessel (white), bright new detective Vusumuzi Ndabeni (black), no-nonsense female investigator Mbali Kaleni (black), and pathologist, Tiffany October (“coloured”). These are the future of the country and its hope, and Deon Meyer, an Afrikaaner, celebrates them.
Notes: The author’s photo is from http://petrona.typepad.com His web page is here: www.deonmeyer.com
Table Mountain dominates the western coast of Cape Town. This photo is by Jon Hicks/Corbis for www.guardian.co.uk. “The Twelve Apostles” mountain range, the site of a hospital in this novel, is shown here, facing the Atlantic, south of Table Mountain: www.capetown.travel/
ALSO by Deon Meyer: BLOOD SAFARI and DEAD AT DAYBREAK
moments or details are worthy of notice, and even wonder, but as the author shows, they are not necessarily “wonderful” in the happy definition of the word. Extraordinary moments are temporal, and, though meaningful, they can also be shocking or sad. These moments are always succeeded by other extraordinary moments, sometimes seemingly at random–and emotionally satisfying moments may be followed by those of devastating shock. For Bolano’s characters, life can be “futile, senseless, ridiculous.” As one speaker comments, “It’s already too late…for everything. Weren’t we damned, right from the origin of our species?”
rant and imaginative, Bolano’s stories seduce the reader into coming back to them again and again looking for answers or explanations that often remain tantalizingly out of reach.
The pampas has also changed, however. “The shame of the nation or the continent has turned [the gauchos] into tame cats. That’s why the cattle have been replaced by rabbits.” Unable to feel at home in the pampas or in the city, the disillusioned Pereda must choose where to spend the rest of his life.
escribes his terrible experience with priests. The two tales taken together reveal much about Bolano’s view of the extraordinary, what we can never know about extraordinary moments, and whether or not they are random.
cumentary,” “Illness and Poetry,” “Illness and Tests,” and ultimately, “Illness and Kafka,” always returning to the idea of the writer and how he regards his work.
stair Sim, great-nephew of the famed actor of the same name, while he was still a student at the University of Glasgow, the novel takes the Victorian police procedural in new directions. Inspector Archibald Allerdyce, an emotionally damaged man who no longer believes in God, and Sergeant Hector McGillivray, even more damaged from his army experiences during the colonial rebellion in India and the Crimean War, have been ordered by the highest levels of government to solve the disappearance of William Bothwell-Scott, the Duke of Dornoch, wealthiest man in Scotland.
n of William’s death takes him into the lower depths of the city, described in terms that “out-Dickens” Dickens—houses of prostitution; bars where the Duke, known to them as Willie Burns, can indulge his desires for young men; gambling dens and dog pits where ratters vie to kill fifty brown rats in five minutes—places so dangerous that Allerdyce needs two men to watch his back. Despite the information that Allerdyce and McGillivray discover, the police powers-that-be, tied to the government, insist that the murderer must be the head of the Scottish mines or the foreman who cleared the Duke’s lands. True justice is unimportant—just the appearance of justice, the quicker the better. Eventually, in true gothic tradition, several other murders occur, innocent people are jailed and quickly subjected to summary trials, an illegitimate child threatens the succession to the estate, coincidences resolve a number of plot issues, and complicated love stories unfold.
dyce. Darwin’s Origin of the Species, published in 1859, has challenged the traditional church beliefs in Separate Creation and the Chain of Being, with man at the top of the chain and rich men at the very top. Spiritualism, a new movement, is becoming popular. Trade unions are beginning to form, and communism, also new, is gaining followers among the poor. Colonial wars, and the country’s involvement in the Crimea, in which the poor have been used as cannon fodder by their aristocratic officers, have further exacerbated class divisions. Allerdyce, despite his agnosticism and awareness of the social inequities, still sees the world in black and white, however: The law is the law, and no compromises are possible, even if the results make no sense on a grander scale. “Sometimes,” he says grandly, “your duty to the law doesn’t seem to do justice to the people you encounter,” but he does his duty anyway.
In the second half of the book, deliberate religious symbols and parallels appear, causing the mystery to veer off in unexpected directions. Patrick Slater is seen as a Christ figure, living in the wilderness and doing good deeds, Allerdyce is declared to be a Judas by someone he wants to help, Easter images describe someone who “rises to a better life,” and a character on trial is asked if he believes in the Bible as God’s perfect word for man, his answer determining his fate.
there enjoy reading and talking about the same kinds of books we do, and the helpful staff has read most of the books and can make recommendations. The main characters in this novel by Laurence Cosse have created just such a bookstore in Paris. Ivan (Van) Georg, who manages a shop called The Good Novel, and Francesca Aldo-Valbelli, the heiress who is supporting it financially, have committed themselves to a shop which is not “an ordinary bookstore…[and] our customers [are not] ordinary customers.”
ing the shop to pay for them. Nasty comments appear on their internet forum, and a seemingly organized attack is mounted in the press, with accusations of elitism taking up whole pages, At one point the shop is described as a “totalitarian undertaking,” an attempt by a small group of elite to control the reading done by the public. Fascist accusations result. Demands are made that the shop’s financial backer be unmasked, and Van and Francesca are both followed.
vide more insight into publishing than the novel itself does. On the internet, you will find a web address, 
Notes: The book I nominated for inclusion at The Good Novel is 
people within a few minutes of their arrival. Some had come here many times and knew that they could reserve cots and places to sleep for the night. Others just took their chances, hoping that the emergency would not last long and that they would be able to return to their homes soon afterward.
who might have become scapegoats, when there were many issues which had contributed to these deaths, he had written his report with a concern for human feelings and for what human beings need in order to deal with such disasters during fraught times such as war. “Perhaps,” he suggests, “we should only sometimes be held accountable for the unintended consequences of our actions.”
at they do, and always leaving the door open for other interpretations of their actions. As the characters become more fully understood, they elicit sympathy from the reader, and by the time all the details are known, the reader feels the same sorts of conflicts that Sir Laurence Dunne felt when he wrote his report. James Low, the chief shelter warden, is unable to forgive himself because his conscientious efforts failed. An eight-year-old who lost her four-year-old sister has seen something that forever affects her life and her relationship with her mother, and she neither forgives nor forgets. Rev. McNeely, of St. John’s Church, across the street, is hard pressed to see the big moral picture which Sir Laurence Dunne feels is so important as he writes his inquiry, the paster recognizing instead the individual issues which he feels have clear black and white answers.
eeds of the community, regardless of the strict definitions of right and wrong. She writes clearly and succinctly and avoids flights of sentimentality, always showing the big picture, the big moral issues, and the big questions of responsibility. Each reader will decide for himself/herself whether to agree with Sir Laurence’s feelings: “People think,” he states, “that they want the whole truth, but they’re far happier with only as much as they can forgive.” A fine novel which deals with major ethical and moral issues within a context which every reader will appreciate and understand, The Report offers a different way of looking at historical events—rationally, but with a kindness toward the participants which protects their integrity and their future lives. “Speculative journalism” and the rush to blame are not yet a way of life at this time.
simply had the misfortune to belong to the wrong rural tribe, these armies massacred a quarter of a million people and displaced a million others.
t, Hannah believes so totally in her own definition of what is right that she is almost inhuman, unable to relate to other people, unable to understand or accept any compromise or middle ground on any issue, and unable to work on an equal partnership with anyone else. Once in Liberia, she meets and marries a government minister in the cabinet of President Samuel Tolbert and has three sons, but she remains not only a detached observer of what is happening in Liberia but a detached participant in the lives of her Liberian family, showing very little feeling or affection for anyone, even her children. Only the chimpanzees for whom she has set up a sanctuary gain her full attention.
g sons, Dillon, William, and Paul had earned the nicknames of Fly, Worse-than-Death, and Demonology by the time she left, her own life hanging by a thread in the midst of the civil war violence. Through flashbacks, Hannah’s early life with her husband, Woodrow Sundiata, shows the violent transition from the corrupt government of William Tolbert to that of Samuel Doe in 1980, culminating with Hannah’s expulsion from Liberia in 1983. While in hiding once again in the US, she meets with Charles Taylor, who had been a friend of her husband, and who later disappears in Africa for many years. In 1989, “ignorant of maternal instinct,” she is able to return to Liberia and her family.
utal history of Liberia, from the seemingly lofty goals of its founding to the beginning of the twenty-first century. No one who reads this (or does a Google image search) will fail to understand the inhumanity and the atrocities for which the International Court of Justice in The Hague has put former President Charles Taylor on trial, nor will they be able to ignore the horrors also committed by Prince Johnson (and recorded on video), who is currently serving as a duly elected senator in Liberia. The high-minded goals of the country are in tatters, the economy is a disaster, the poor are still hungry, tens of millions of dollars in US aid have lined the pockets of the country’s politicians, and as the novel ends, Hannah Musgrove is living in New York State as a wealthy heiress with a successful commercial farm. Nothing good seems to have resulted from any of this for the people of Liberia.
theoretical and dense the novel sometimes became with its science. Fascinating personal stories are interwoven with the scientific plot, giving the novel immediacy, even for a devout non-scientist.
ach of these stations will report by telegraph to a central facility. Forecasting at this time is inexact, however, with accuracy declining for every day after the first day of observations. Forecasts beyond two or three days are often wildly inaccurate, and a five-day forecast seems impossible. Though the air pressure, the winds, and the temperatures can all be measured, these measurements can be compromised, sometimes fatally, by the unexpected effects of turbulence and by measurements which may not take into account all the variables. Discovering some valid way to add turbulence into the calculations would help explain the seemingly random changes which occur in the weather, a crucial element in the D-Day plans.
his life’s work used for warfare, but Henry Meadows hopes to convince him to share the application of his “Ryman number” in the pursuit of a weather equation to aid in meteorological forecasting.
interpretation of God’s will, the issues of science which have not yet been resolved (a solution for the problems of the Rh factor in pregnancy, for example), and the desire to find one formula which will explain the as yet unexplainable future, all relate to the idea of turbulence and seemingly random outcomes but do not necessarily provide insights or answers. Filled with vibrant descriptions, an assortment of characters whose views of the world differ greatly from that of the twenty-first century, a setting that reflects a critical moment in time, and philosophical/scientific themes and insights of great originality, Turbulence is a novel which manages to raise questions and explore them in ways I have not seen before in literary fiction, and I loved it.
three other young Vietnamese women who have also emigrated to France—now totally assimilated after twenty years of living there. Two sisters, known as Elder Cousin, or Potbelly, who is pregnant, and her younger sister, Long Legs, a “cutie” who is living with someone she hopes is a ticket to wealth, have decided to invite their estranged father, King Lear, to come from Saigon to Paris for a three-week visit. Potbelly will pay for the trip, since she is married to a wealthy French “Hardware Man” in the “nutsandbolts business” who, significantly, will be away during the visit; Long Legs has no money, spending her small salary on clothes, makeup, and trinkets. The third member of the Three Fates, Southpaw, referred to at one point as Albatrocious, is their cousin, a young woman who has lost a hand.
on, King Lear has observed the changes in the country for the past twenty years, accompanied not by any family members but by The Wheezer, a priest who was tortured, his vocal cords and tendons cut by the communists, and who no longer celebrates the Mass, referring to God now as the Butcher on High and the Great Deaf-Mute in the Sky. He hangs around King Lear hoping for a meal of his favorite fried eel.
that conceit is relatively undeveloped, the characters not really paralleling King Lear as Shakespeare has created him. But other symbols, of Bluebeard, dragons, witches who remove hands, soldiers, and even of a shrimp which is about to be fried take their place. The fairly straightforward narrative of the early part of the novel becomes much more “internalized” by the author, and the voices of the speaker(s) become more dream-like and nightmarish as a torrent of words and images is disgorged for the reader to interpret.
ult to judge—or to give stars to, if one were to do that—since it is obviously revealing connections which the author has to the past, close to the heart but not necessarily things that the reader will identify with or understand. Sometimes the novel feels like an aria being sung to an audience in an operatic language which the reader does not understand, but just as often it feels like a poem being read to a sympathetic audience of people who can identify with the feelings, if not the events. The artificiality of the construction and the sometimes arch, even academic, attitudes—including a large amount of mockery of people—may add to the “humor” of the narrative, but it is a cynical, sometimes snide humor which trivializes the way others deal with the lives that fate has handed them, and it gets in the way of more thoughtful communication. The descriptions and the musicality of the language are superb, but I sometimes felt as if I were being involved in a literary free-for-all when what I wanted was to understand the feelings of the characters who were facing very real and difficult problems.