Deon Meyer is one of South Africa's top crime authors. His new novel is
Seven Days.
From his Q & A with Alison Flood at the
Observer:
Some might say that Griessel, your troubled but brilliant alcoholic detective, is a bit of a cliche. Was that a worry?
When I first wrote him, in Dead Before Dying, he was never supposed to become a major character. He was supposed to be the comic relief in a fairly dark book, but he had the knack of walking on to the page and making things happen. At the end of the book I realised I had to bring him back, if I could find a story that suited him. By then I had already created him as a bit of a cliche, so I had to work with that – I had to put a new and exciting spin on the typical cliche of a drunk cop. I thought: let's put him through the wringer. So his wife in Devil's Peak says he has a choice – if he wants to get his family back he has to stay sober.
Did you always want to write thrillers?
I always wanted to write, but I never thought in terms of genre. I always thought in terms of story, and still do. For me, the most important thing is to try to tell an entertaining story – let other people worry about what genre it is.
Why write in Afrikaans, when your English is so good?
Afrikaans is...[read on]
Devil's Peak by Deon Meyer is one of
Michael Stanley's top ten African crime novels.
--Marshal Zeringue
