Blood Safari

I had never read a Deon Meyer book before so I didn’t really know what to expect when I started this – it just sounded like a good book when I read the blurb on the back cover.  Wow, what a read.  I have now discovered a new author to add to my must read list!

If you haven’t heard of this author before, he is a South African who writes thrillers and Blood Safari is his 5^th translated book (he may have written more in Africaans – I’m not sure).I would class his books as a cross between Lee Child and the Aussie crime writer, Michael Robotham, with a bit of the author Tony Park thrown in.

Blood Safari is an adventure thriller about a personal bodyguard, a loner called Lemmer, who is hired through the company he works for; Body Armour, to look after a Emma Le Roux, a marketing brand consultant.  Anyway Emma is convinced she has seen her long lost brother in a TV news item about  a murder of some poachers – her ‘brother’ is the suspect and on the run.  Emma is amazed as he disappeared from the Kruger National Park 20 years before, when she was just a young girl.  She makes a phone enquiry to a local police station near where the murders took place and the next thing she know some men are trying to break into her house and attack her.

Her suspicians are raised and she just has to find out if the guy she saw on TV is really her long lost brother.  Lemmer, her bodyguard is sceptical but has a job to do and they travel to the KrugerNational Park together to investigate.  I can’t give you much more information as I don’t want to spoil the plot, but lets just say that Lemmer doesn’t remain sceptical for too long, he even starts to fall for Emma (which is breaking his number 1 rule for the job, ‘Don’t get involved’, his number 2 law is ‘Trust nobody’ – I’m sure you’re getting a picture of this guy, Lemmer is a loner, who has a chequered past, he sort of reminded me a bit of Jack Reacher in the Lee Child novels, but a little more believable).!

This is an exciting read, plenty of gripping action, a mystery, vengeance and even a bit of romance. I loved the descriptions of the new South Africa.   I started this on a holiday recently and couldn’t put it down.  Since then, I have read 2 more of his earlier books, but Blood Safari is definitley the best of the three I have read so far.  I will keep an eye out for more of Deon Meyer’s thriller!  Highly recommended.

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Year published: 2009
Pete‘s rating: 10 out of 10