Culture

Author: Deon Meyer. Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks (2.5/5)



Deon Meyer is apparently “the best crime writer in South Africa” according to the review on the back of this book.  Set in the “lowveld” near Kruger National Park in South Africa, Blood Safari is about a woman named Emma who is looking for her brother who supposedly died twenty years beforehand. After seeing a man on a TV news report named Cobie DeVilliers, Emma becomes convinced that he is her dead brother Jacobus. She investigates his whereabouts and then hires a bodyguard named Lemmer to protect her after she is attacked in her home. Together they travel to rural South Africa in search of her brother, and come up against many challenges along the way from people who do not want them to know the truth.
 
 
If you’re able to look past the rather ominous title of this South African crime drama, you’ll find an easy to read book, though not overly entertaining. I feel that it lacks depth and is predictable, though on a positive note it was full of action and, well, blood and safari animals. It also had some rather interesting commentary on the power struggles within post-apartheid South African society.

If you honestly have nothing else to read, then pick this up. But if I were you, I’d give Blood Safari a miss and pick up your course readers instead – you’ll get much more out of them than you will this book.