Dead at Daybreak [Paperback]

A brutal murder, an empty safe and a missing will - this is the central theme around which this thrilling who-dun-it from South African Deon Meyer evolves. The unlikely hero takes the form of Zatopek "Zet" van Heerden, a former policeman who once excelled in Police Science, but now is a lonely, aggressive alcoholic, bent on self destruction. It is also well known that the safest place to be when Zet fires a gun is directly in front of the target.

Zet was on the scene when an accused serial killer fatally shot his partner and mentor, but this is not the only skeleton in his closet. The author skillfully ties in his past and present, so we soon get a picture of what makes Zet tick.

At the beginning of the story, a drunken tussle with a group of five men lands Zet some jail time, but a former colleague links him up with attorney Hope Beneke, who has a job for him. Hope's client is Wilhelmina Johanna "Wilna" van As, significant other of Johannes Jacobus "Jan" Smit, the unfortunate target of the aforementioned murder and robbery. Zet has seven days to recover the missing will before Wilna loses her inheritance, and the investigation takes every ounce of his considerable skill.

It immediately becomes obvious that nothing can be taken at face value, and that the case goes back nearly two dozen years to 1976. Time is running out, the situation is getting desperate and the players are bringing out the big guns.

A richly embellished tale, laced with murder, mayhem, intrigue, a little romance and a lot of cooking.

Amanda Richards, January 14, 2006

The country of South Africa is the exotic and fascinating background to Deon Meyer's thrillers. His books are filled with names and places in the Afrikaans and traditional languages: Mzimkhulu, Mpayipheli, Van Heerden, de Jager, Groote Schur, Gerhardus Basson. I loved trying to pronounce these words. They sound so beautiful and rare in my attempts at verbalization. The book also deals with contemporary issues in South Africa, especially racism. Mr. Meyer has again created a top level thriller with Dead at Daybreak. After reading Blood Safari, which I loved, I decided to read all of Mr. Meyer's thrillers.

This novel is about several things - - a lost will, a lost man and an event that occurred thirty years ago that is leaving dead men in its wake today. Zet Van Heerden is a former police officer who has spent the last several years in a drunken haze, fighting and brawling as he tries to escape his personal demons. After a night in jail, a friend rescues him and sets him up with a job as a private investigator for a female attorney who is trying to find a missing will. Zet lives a lonely life. His main interests, when he's not drinking, are cooking and listening to classical music -- especially Mozart and Beethoven., Zet is very close to his mother who is a famous South African artist. As Zet chases down the will, a conspiracy unfolds, leaving many dead men in its wake and putting those close to Zet at risk.

Concurrent with the thriller's narrative, the story of Zet's personal history unfolds. Every other chapter in the book is a chapter in Zet's memoirs. We watch Zet grow from his childhood into the man he is today. We understand how he came to believe that all of us are evil, that we carry badness within us. We watch as Zet searches for the perfect woman only to be foiled over and over again. We come to really know him and his demons.

Thrillers are ubiquitous. How does a reader find the truly exceptional ones - - those worth reading. Once way is to pay attention to reviews. This is a fantabulous book, one that came up to my every expectation. I plan to read the rest of Meyer's books and hope they're all as good as the first two I've read.

Meyer's second work of fiction, Dead at Daybreak, is set in South Africa, as was his impressive first novel, Heart of the Hunter, once more proving that greed and murder are universal, humanity equally flawed anywhere in the world. Zet van Heerden is disenchanted with life since his partner's death, having quit the force, spending his days in alcoholic oblivion. His old cronies in the department think it is Nagel's death at the hands of a serial killer that has pushed van Heerden over the edge, but it is more than that, an unbearable guilt that the disillusioned detective carries in his heart.

When van Heerden, now a private investigator, receives a call from attorney Hope Beneke, he begrudgingly accepts an assignment to recover a handwritten will, stolen from Johannes Smit, an antiques dealer who was tortured with a blowtorch before being shot, execution-style, in the back of the head. Smit's specially built safe is empty, but nothing else in the house has been touched. The antique dealer's live-in partner, Wilna van As, has only seven days to find the will and claim the estate. Zet's job is made more difficult by the time restriction, his frustration mounting with each dead end. But when he discovers there is no paper trail for Smit prior to starting his business, the PI turns his attentions to Smit's activities pre-1983, opening a Pandora's box of killers, intelligence agents, mercenaries and assorted desperadoes, all of whom will do anything to keep certain information quiet, threatening van Heerden's life and those around him. Suddenly, Zet is pursued by faceless assassins and determined intelligence officers in an accelerating cat-and-mouse game that quickly degenerates into violence.

The chapters counting backward from day seven, the prose moves back and forth between present and past, the investigation of Smit's murder reopening old wounds, bringing to the surface what the protagonist so desperately wants to suppress. Within the plot of Dead at Daybreak, Meyer creates a parallel universe, the police procedural translated into a struggle to contain the despair that has crippled van Heerden's spirit. Forced to look into his darkest motivations, Zet sees only the evil, unforgiving and without compassion for himself, his concentrated self-denial usurps his waking life, poisoning the present and the future; only the jailer can unlock the cell. Ironically, van Heerden's mother and Hope Beneke have the patience that may foster his resurfacing, as both women allow him the freedom to escape from a moral quagmire of his own making.

Constructing a picture of a man in conflict, Meyer ties art to life in a subtle marriage of music, passion and imagination, giving a sense of purpose to suffering: "I didn't realize how finally, how dramatically the morning of my life would spill me over the edge like so much flotsam". In this fascinating drama, personal morality overlaps professionalism in a moral quagmire, the characters sharply drawn with complicated motives. Even Tiny Mpayipheli, the hero of Heart of the Hunter, makes an appearance, lending his critical support to van Heerden on the final bloody leg of their journey. Insightful and psychologically taut, this South African thriller is compelling, a thoughtful examination of denial and personal responsibility and the acceptance of human limitations. Once again, Meyers displays his impressive skills as an observer of human nature, with all its misplaced passions and yearning for compatibility with the interior landscape of the heart. Luan Gaines/2005.