Dead Before Dying

Deon Meyer
Little, Brown and Company (2006)
ISBN 0316000132
Reviewed by Kristina Patton for Reader Views (5/06)

Ancient artifacts, a serial killer, a bank robber, and an unknown town with a risk-taking police force make Deon Meyer’s novel, “Dead Before Dying,” a fantastic page-turner.

The Murder & Robbery Squad of Cape Town, South Africa gets a new media-happy colonel. The squad’s captain is still grieving the loss of his wife in the line of duty and one of its detectives is battling an addiction to alcohol. But, despite the hardships, the show must go on. A recent string of murders and bank robberies jump start this division into headline-making success.

Captain Mat Joubert, in the midst of grieving, is told that, unless he shapes up, he can ship out. He begins to see a psychiatrist, starts a new diet and exercise program and watches his best friend battle rehab. All the while, he is trying to track down a serial killer, a bank robber, and a love life.

In what has to be the best thriller that I’ve read all year, Deon Meyer takes an ordinary man with ordinary problems and makes him a newsworthy hero. As Captain Joubert solves the crimes, he also encounters new people and new situations to help him through his own grief and sadness. The reader will laugh, cry, and get angry as Joubert emits a personality so real to life that he becomes a friend. My favorite passage is: “Sometimes….you had a fast ascent to the summit, where you handed over the warrant of arrest, a neat parcel of motive and evidence, cause and effect. But sometimes, like this one, the mountain was smooth and slippery, without crevices for hands and toes to grip. You climbed and slipped, climbed and slipped without progress, without a way to the top.” This passage really shows the emotion that is carried between these pages. Meyers really makes the reader feel as if you are right alongside Captain Joubert throughout all of his trials and tribulations.

 In a story that keeps you guessing until the end, Meyer sheds new light on an old game. The crimes are brutal and the characters become your friends in a mystery that reads like an episode of Law & Order. This book is fantastic and makes the reader want to go back and read everything that Deon Meyers has written.

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