A new series of reviews of dark fiction (crime, thriller and horror novels) – both old and new – that I have recently read and
enjoyed. I’ll endeavour to keep the SPOILERS to a minimum; there will certainly
be no given-away denouements or exposed twists-in-the-tail in this column, but by the
definition of the word ‘review’ I’m going to be talking about these books in more
than just thumbnail detail, extolling the aspects that I particularly enjoyed …
so I guess if you’d rather not know anything at all about these pieces of work
in advance of reading them yourself, then these particular posts will not be
your thing.
DEVIL’S PEAK by Deon Meyer (2005)
Devil’s Peak takes us into the heart of Cape Town’s Serious
and Violent Crimes Unit, where one of the lead investigators, now a recovering
alcoholic, finds himself pitted against the most dangerous opponent of his
career.
DI Benny Griessel is an instinctively brilliant detective, a
natural hunter of criminals. But hard drinking has destroyed his family life
and made him a laughing stock in the department where once he was a legend. Not
a good time for him to come up against ‘Artemis’, a vigilante serial-killer targetting
child-abusers, who doesn’t just enjoy what appears to be advanced military
training but is operating with the tacit approval of many of Griessel’s fellow
cops.
One of the most startling thing about this crime masterwork
from South African author, Deon Meyer, is that it was originally penned in
Afrikaans. All the more credit, then, to translater KL Seegers for producing
such a beautifully written and yet blood-pumpingly readable English language
version.
But it isn’t just about the action. A far, far cry from your
basic ‘cops and robbers’ or blow-by-blow ‘good guys v bad guys’, Devil’s Peak
is a grown-up and multi-faceted tale, tough and visceral in tone, but also rich in flawed characters and deeply
redolent of both urban and rural South Africa; not just the geographic
landscape, but the political and social scene as well.
The three central personalities: drunken cop, Griessel, high
class call-girl, Christine van Rooyen, and vigilante avenger, Thobela
Mpayipheli, are so well-drawn that you can literally see them in front of you.
Griessel in particular is a wonderful creation. You might be tempted to say, “okay,
another alcoholic antihero … big deal”, but in this case it’s for real. By this
I mean that Griessel’s recuperation from his alcoholism is every bit as
gruelling as you’d expect it to be in reality. The reader isn’t spared a single
torturous moment of his DTs, or allowed to forget for one minute the
devastation his drinking has caused in both his private and public life. It
makes him a hugely sympathetic if very conflicted hero, but hardly equips him
to face the floodtide of heinous crimes exploding around him.
And yet this is all very serious stuff. The painful
realities of an understaffed police force trying to function in the face of
corruption, cynicism and spiralling crime rates, and in a society still divided and impoverished in so
many ways, are never skimped on. There are times in Devil’s Peak when you
really do wonder if there is any hope that good can overcome evil.
Anyway, I’ll say no more, because this novel has to be read
cover to cover to be fully appreciated, and once you start you won’t be able to
stop. I managed it in only two sittings, if I recall correctly.
A taut but very human crime thriller, which rises to a
spectacularly brutal and exciting finale. No wonder Meyer is so highly rated.
It’s my first one of his and won’t be my last. He deserves all the accolades.
Just as a bit of fun,
here are my picks for who should play the leads if we’re ever fortunate enough
to see Devil’s Peak transferred to the screen (I think an adaptation may possibly
be in development):
DI Benny Griessel –
Arnold Vosloo
Thobela Mpayipheli, ‘Artemis’
– Idris Elba
Christine van Rooyen –
Jessica Marais
THE DEEP by Nick Cutter (2015)
When the world’s population is decimated by an incurable and
rapidly expanding plague, mankind’s last hope rests with maverick scientist Clayton
Nelson and his team as they test a possible solution at the foot of the Challenger
Deep (40,000 feet below the ocean’s surface). But when all contact with the
submarine base is suddenly cut – seemingly at Clayton’s own whim – the only
remaining option is to send down his brother, Luke, to try and talk the
nortoriously erratic genius around.
But Luke and Clayton, having shared a nightmarish childhood,
don’t get on very well, and in any case there are things lurking down there
that are beyond the normal comprehension of most human beings.
Make no mistake, the events that follow comprise pure horror
– for all sorts of reasons.
Never has the terror of deep sea exploration been as fully
and vividly realised as it is here. Nick Cutter takes us down through untold
lightless fathoms to a realm that is alien in every sense of the word; an
environment where oxygen itself turns toxic, where the tiniest chink in the
hull could create an incoming jet of water so intense it will slice a man in
half, and yet where native creatures exist that have no place in any sane
creation. But it isn’t just the twisting of physics and biology that bedevils the
reader’s mind here, it is Man’s helplessness in the face of it. With Hell
triumphant on the outside, on the inside of the claustrophobic sea-base the
foulness and disarray is horrendous; the sense of besiegement under millions of
tonnes of crushing black water is overpowering. I don’t think I’ve ever read another
book to which my most overriding response was “thank God I’m not there”.
And if all that isn’t bad enough, then there is the actual
enemy – a force of evil crueller and more terrible than anything ever
encountered on the ocean floor before (and just imagine what that actually
means). A sentient something that will play catastrophic havoc with human minds, not to mention their anatomy, purely for reasons of its own fascination. To say more about this would be a real spoiler, but put it this way,
there are some occasions when wickedness knows no bounds – quite literally;
neither intellectual, spiritual, nor even physical. There are points in this novel where you must be prepared to be very disgusted indeed.
At the same time, Luke Nelson, a likeable hero in every
possible way, is no more than an everyman. A veterinary surgeon, who by pure
luck – pure bad luck in this case –
happens to know the egomaniac scientist well. He has no skills of his own that he
can bring to bear in this demonic zone, no specialist knowledge. His battle-scarred
military sidekick, Lieutenant Alice Sykes, aside from being a submersible
pilot, is in a similar position. The desperate twosome find themselves completely
at the mercy of forces beyond their imagining, and yet somehow they must not
just endure, but must save the world with their actions.
This an amazing piece of fiction. Another against-all-odds
ordeal for the characters involved, which races along at whipcrack speed and yet is written with great visual elan, including
the complex technical stuff, which Cutter never shirks, but presents to us in
quick, slick, easy-to-understand fashion. It is is also both horrifying and
terrifying – in that numbing, near-nihilistic way that always seems to earmark those
‘adventures’ occurring on the very edge of human reality. An oceanic horror classic.
As always, and just for
fun, here are my picks for who should play the leads if we ever get to see The
Deep transferred to the screen:
Dr. Luke Nelson – David
Franco
Lt Cdr. Alice Sykes –
Charlise Theron
Prof. Clayton Nelson –
James Franco
