The hunter's heart
The heart of the hunter (original title in Afrikaans : Proteus ) is a spy thriller by the South African writer Deon Meyer from 2002. The German translation by Ulrich Hoffmann was published in 2005. Because of a friendship service, a motorcyclist and former liberation fighter is hunted across South Africa by the secret service . In his luggage is a hard drive with sensitive data that threatens to reveal a mole .
content
Johnny Kleintjes, a former employee of the South African National Intelligence Agency , is kidnapped. Apparently he tried to sell top secret data from his time in the secret service and fooled his business partners with a blank hard drive. Now the kidnappers are demanding that Kleintjes' daughter Monica bring the real hard drive to Lusaka in Zambia within 72 hours , otherwise her father will be murdered. Monica Kleintjes doesn't know what else to do than to ask for help from Thobela “Tiny” Mpayipheli, an old friend of her father's from the South African liberation struggle. He hesitates, since he has long since left his violent past behind and built a new life for himself at the side of his partner Miriam and her son Pakamile. Finally, out of old friendship, he declares himself ready for the dangerous courier service.
But Thobela is being monitored by the South African secret service, who fears the hard drive will be passed on, in particular the exposure of a high-ranking personality who spies as a double agent for the CIA under the cover name "Inkululeko" ( Zulu for "freedom") . Thobela is arrested at the airport, but is able to flee and decides to head for Zambia by land. To do this, he borrows a BMW R 1150 GS from his employer , which carries him across South Africa. The secret service activates the Reaction Unit , a special unit under the leadership of the irascible Captain Tiger Mazibuko, which sets out to pursue the fugitive. The gigantic Thobela is not a blank slate. Under the code name "Umzingeli" ( Xhosa for "hunter"), he was a feared hit man for the Soviet KGB in the 1980s , before he realized that the ordered murders did not correspond to his idea of honorable combat. But when the journalist Allison Healey publishes the story of the “big, bad Xhosa biker” in the Cape Times , the public soon feels sympathy for the lonely motorcyclist. Motorcycle clubs such as the local chapter of the Hells Angels embark on to assist to the persecuted, and spent Griqua -Troubadour Koos Kok smuggled him in his old Chevrolet through a police barrier.
The secret service does not remain idle. The head of operations, Janina Mentz, confesses to the director that she herself recruited Johnny Kleintjes to dupe the CIA with falsified data. Since then, the operation has slipped away more and more. Johnny Kleintjes is found murdered in Lusaka. The word “Kaathieb” (Arabic for “liar”) carved into his chest suggests that he has come under the control of Islamist extremists. Thobela's partner Miriam is taken into custody and falls to her death trying to escape. Meanwhile, Allison Healey seeks out Zatopek van Heerden, a former police officer and friend of Thobela who now works at the University of Cape Town's Psychological Institute . Together they track down Thobela in Botswana and use the local police to rescue him from the planned access by Mazibuko.
Back in South Africa, after a tip from the double agent “Inkululeko”, two agents of the CIA are already waiting to liquidate their former opponent “Umzingeli”. Thobela and van Heerden are also able to fend off this attack. As it turns out, there is no one behind "Inkululeko" than the secret service employee Janina Mentz personally. With her operation she not only wanted to bring the CIA into possession of Kleintjes' explosive information, but also to suspect the director of the secret service, a Zulu , of being the wanted mole. With the threat of making the contents of Kleintjes' hard drive public, van Heerden blackmailed the whereabouts of little Pakamile, who was orphaned after his mother's death. Thobela Mpayipheli takes the boy into his care.
background
Like his protagonist Thobela Mpayipheli, Deon Meyer is also a keen motorcyclist . He owned a BMW R 1150 GS himself . Until 2007 he worked for BMW Motorrad in South Africa as a brand consultant and project manager.
Thobela Mpayipheli made his first appearance in Meyer's previous novel Death Before Dawn ( Orion , 2000) and is one of the main characters in the sequel The Hunter's Breath ( Infanta , 2004), the first novel in the Benny Griessel series. Zatopek van Heerden also determined death before dawn in the predecessor .
reception
Birgit Koß feels taken on “an impressive journey through South Africa”, in which Deon Meyer focuses on “the political and moral changes” in the country. According to Patrick Anderson, the author creates in the character Thobela Mpayipheli a mythical hero who captures the soul of an entire continent. He stands for strength like the long history of suffering of Africa and the Africans. Dick Adler sees The Hunter's Heart as the dark, explosive counterpart to Alexander McCall Smith's Botswana books. The novel casts an "exciting and strangely hopeful look" into South Africa today. For Kirkus Review , Deon Meyer follows in the footsteps of John le Carré with the post- apartheid thriller in a “wonderful setting” .
The novel won the South African ATKV Prosa Prize in 2003 and was ranked second in the 2006 German Crime Prize in the International category .
expenditure
- Deon Meyer: Proteus . Human & Rousseau, Cape Town 2002, ISBN 0-7981-4274-X .
- Deon Meyer: The hunter's heart . Translated from the English by Ulrich Hoffmann. Rütten & Loening, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-352-00727-6 .
Web links
- Heart of the Hunter by Deon Meyer on complete-review.com.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Heart of the Hunter ( Memento of the original from June 12, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on Deon Meyer's website.
- ↑ a b Biography on Deon Meyer's website.
- ↑ Birgit Koß: When enemies become friends . In: Deutschlandradio Kultur from September 16, 2005.
- ↑ Patrick Anderson: Spy vs. Spy in the Veld . In: The Washington Post, July 19, 2004.
- ^ "The dark, explosive side of Alexander McCall Smith's Botswana books [...] an exciting and oddly hopeful look". Quoted from: Dick Adler: Hunting for justice in varied locales . In: Chicago Tribune, July 25, 2004.
- ^ "Wonderful setting". Quoted from: Heart of the Hunter by Deon Meyer . In: Kirkus Review of July 12, 2004.
