The Woman In The Blue Cloak by South African writer Deon Meyer is the kind of gem I am happy to discover.
Translated from Afrikaans, his mysteries have international appeal. Here I find a recent hardcover in his Captain Bennie Greissel series, with terrific writing, engaging characters and a thoughtful mystery. A complete hit.
American art expert Alicia Lewis travelled to Cape Town in search of a lost masterpiece by Dutch painter Carel Fabritius, a student of Rembrandt and the renowned painter of The Goldfinch. Within days, she is found dead on a desolate highway, her car miles away in the woods.
"This was the bus all detectives chased: a big fat murder investigation... a bus that could take you a long way... there was only one destination for a big fat bus with a foreign tourist as the victim of a murder.
This bus was en route to the circus."
Captain Benny Greissel and his partner Vaughn Cupido were the two who caught the bus to the circus. Working for the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations (the Hawks), they retrace her steps and interview those associated with the painting - from the owners, professors, pawnshop owners and thieves, to local thug private eyes. This offers art history, police work, Benny's personal life, interactions with all levels of society, including the local Xhosa population (and of interest, the South African endearments and titles they use with each other). I felt immersed in the Cape Town setting, original and authentic. The plot revolves around the 1654 painting of a woman in a blue (possibly Rembrandt's mistress) with flashbacks interspersed to the historic event that same year, the Delft Thunderclap. To the painting's owner would come the current value: one billion rand.
Meyer blends art and the history of Cape Town with ease. Like Janwillem Van Der Wetering's 'Amsterdam Cops' series, Karin Fossum's Inspector Sejer series, and Colin Dexter's 'Inspector Morse' series, this is driven by the two main detectives, Benny and his partner Vaughn, backed up by an assortment of random citizens highlighting the local customs. The murder is odd but not gratuitous - for me, sort of an incidental framework for the characters to work in. So engaging are Benny and Vaughn, any mystery they are involved in would be a pleasure for me. This hit all the notes I would ask for, and I am happy to have discovered a new author. He has written several different series, and luckily for me, this is number 5 of 6 novels featuring Benny Greissel.
Time to seek the other ones out.
2017 / Hardcover / 172 pages
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