A Bumper Time for South African Crime Fiction

 Michael - Alternate Thursdays

After a bit of a drought for the last few years, South African crime fiction has new voices saying new things and some older voices saying new things also. It could be a resurgence that will draw new readers at home and abroad. I’ve been interviewing some of them for ITW’s Africa Scene, and I hope to be talking to more of them this year. More important, I’ll be reading their books.

Deon Meyer is South Africa's premier crime writer, and his new book Leo came out in English at the end of last year. He’s written another startling thriller set around Benny Griessel and his problems. Stellenbosch with its beautiful wine country and darker commercial side has proved to be a great setting for the books. This one visits Italy also. Deon’s books always deliver!

Irma Venter, a best-selling author in South Africa, will be making her debut in the US with Red Tide this April. It’s a terrific novel matching two very different detectives trying to solve a cold case together in the arid Karoo. The case is very personal to one of them and becomes so for the other. The blend of an art theme with grabbing characters makes this a powerful thriller. I think American readers will agree.

Natalie Conyer is a new(ish) voice. She grew up in Cape Town and now lives in Sydney. Her debut featured Detective Schalk Lourens trying to find his way in the police in the new South Africa while trying to catch a murderer. Present Tense won the Ned Kelly award in Australia for best debut novel, quite an achievement for a book set somewhere else. The sequel, Shadow City, is set partly in Sydney and partly in Cape Town and follows an unexpected slave trade linking the countries. I hope we’ll see more of her books and of Schalk in the future.

Tony Park is one of South Africa's best-selling thriller writers. He's an Australian who lives mostly in South Africa these days much of it in the African bush. Many of his books revolve around poaching and smuggling, and pangolins are the unfortunate targets in The Protector. This one blends in a mystery too, making it something different.

For something completely different, try Jennifer Stern’s A Big Hand for the Spirits. It blends a southern African travel adventure, a thriller, and an intriguing blend of philosophy that she calls African magical realism. The result is something quite unique.

Finally, there's a scary kidnapping thriller, Now You Suffer, from Gareth Crocker that keeps you guessing We see the story partly from the viewpoint of a detective whose own daughter had been kidnapped and so is never far from exploding into violence and anger, and partly from the viewpoint of one of the kidnapper’s victims who refers to him just as Thing. Is Thing a psychopathic pedophile or something even worse? There are lots of twists along the way.

And I’m very excited to hear that Mike Nicol will be starting a new series this year. He’s been working on it for a while and the first book is ready to go. I can’t wait.

And that’s just for starters. The whole of 2025 is still ahead!