Deon Meyer is one of the sure values of the thriller, of those whose new production we await, divided between the desire for a comforting ritual and the hope of a narrative surprise. In 2017, The Year of the Lionpostapocalyptic dystopia, had destabilized some readers. In 2021, The woman in the blue coata short novel intended to make its aficionados wait more than to enrich its bibliography, was disappointing. No bad surprises this time, with Leoreleased at the beginning of October. Two stories intersect: an investigation led by his traditional heroes, Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido, into a lawyer killed by blows of expanding foam propelled down his throat and the preparation of a heist aimed at intercepting a huge quantity of money and gold on an airfield. Deon Meyer deploys the know-how that made his success from his first titles, Until the last And Soldiers of the Dawn.
Once again, it prints Leo his formidable sense of rhythm and his ability to construct breathtaking scenarios. The book, as is often the case with Meyer, is a cobbler, but its 600 pages can be read in a few days. In the first part of the novel, the author plays with incessant back and forth between the present and the past, forcing the reader to question the temporality of the action in progress. Then he finishes on a high. The last hundred pages, occupied by a memorable, almost cinematographic heist scene, take up a process already used – and appreciated – in 1 p.m.a narrative very tight in time and all the more intense. The timing of the robbers’ movements further accentuates this impression.
Behind the fiction, the shadow of former president Jacob Zuma
But Deon Meyer is not just an action writer like Lee Child and his Jack Reacher. For almost thirty years, he has aimed to tell the story of his country. And in LeoSouth Africa is doing badly. Certainly, he delivers a less dark and less violent version than his compatriots Mike Nicol and Roger Smith, but this time he seems to have lost the optimism that he has long claimed about the capacity of South Africa to get its head out. high post-apartheid era. In Leohe expresses his anger against those who claim to be the “heirs” of Nelson Mandela but who are not, against the elites who continue to plunder the State, against the widespread corruption from which everyone tries to benefit . He has renamed his protagonists, but we easily recognize former president Jacob Zuma and the Gupta brothers, all at the heart of “state capture”. Thrillers rarely focus on societies that are doing well; this time Deon Meyer goes a step further in his criticism of the South African political system.
For a long time, he compensated for the darkness of the situation with the great humanity of his characters and his talent for painting nuanced and endearing portraits. In Leoas in the most recent of these novels, it focuses on two of them, the famous duo, Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido. Yesterday members of an elite unit, today demoted to second-rate investigations, always dreaming of returning to the forefront, the two men have their faults: the first is an ex-alcoholic constantly on the verge of tripping , the second, obsessed with food, perpetually tries to lose weight, both try to stand up straight in order to please their respective women. Is it because we have seen them too often? This time, the tandem struggles to convince. Worse, he tires with his perpetual questions about one person’s marriage and the other’s next meal.
Deon Meyer, who was for a long time part of the legendary Seuil team of the 1990s-2000s publishing Michael Connelly, Henning Mankell, Lawrence Block and many others, joined Gallimard four books ago. The house’s marketing team spares no effort in proclaiming in a yellow banner on a black background “More than 1 million readers in France”. Probably not completely false, since the beginning of the 2000s, the author has established himself in France as the representative of his country in the world of noir. Therefore, with this success, perhaps he can allow himself a slight infidelity to his two paper companions? We remember having encountered with a certain happiness in his first novels Mat Joubert, an ex-cop who became a private detective, or Lemmer, an ex-bodyguard who became a man of secret missions. We would not mind meeting new protagonists of the rainbow nation tomorrow.
Leo by Deon Meyer, Trans. from Afrikaans by Georges Lory, Gallimard, 626 P., €23
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