The sad policeman

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The sad policeman (original title in Afrikaans : Feniks ) is a detective novel by the South African writer Deon Meyer from 1996. The German translation by Ulrich Hoffmann was published in 2005 by Aufbau Verlag . In July 2016, a film adaptation of the novel was broadcast as a six-part miniseries Cape Town with Trond Espen Seim in the lead role.

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Two years after her death while working undercover as a drug investigator, Mat Joubert, captain with the South African Police Service , is still mourning his wife Lara. His services in the police force suffer from his depression. Again and again he plays with the idea of ​​suicide. After endangering his colleagues during an operation, he receives a warning. When Colonel Bart de Wit, an ANC beneficiary from British exile with no practical experience in police work, is appointed the new head of the homicide squad in Cape Town , he orders his detectives to be more physically fit. The alcoholic Benny Griessel, who is admitted to a rehab clinic, is hit particularly hard . In addition to a nutritional diet, Joubert receives therapy sessions from the police psychologist Hanna Nortier, which are surprisingly good for him. Soon he developed a private interest in the young woman and even attended classical concerts by her side.

When a serial killer executes several apparently unconnected people with targeted shots, Joubert takes over the lead of the investigation. The only clue is the murder weapon, a large-caliber Mauser Broomhandle. When the almost 100-year-old weapon fails in an assassination attempt, the perpetrator makes do with a petite Smith & Wesson escort, which is considered a typical woman's weapon . The criminologist Dr. From this, Boshoff developed the theory that the serial killer was homosexual. De Wit, on the other hand, causes a frown when he first tries to assign the acts to the Chinese Mafia and finally lets a medium flown in from London to parapsychologically track down the killer . The investigation is focused on a series of bank robbers who, wearing different disguises, but with exquisite courtesy, rob branches of the same bank and threaten with an alleged moult. But Joubert doubts the connection between the very different acts, and Griessel, who is ready for action again, arrests a make-up artist as a bank robber who is only armed with a toy gun.

It wasn't until late that Joubert discovered a common connection between the victims of the series of murders: years ago they had taken a joint course in self-discovery at Cape Commercial College . Although he cannot prevent the last participant in the course from being murdered, he then tracks down the then course instructor Hester Clarke, who has since changed her name: It is his psychologist Hanna Nortier. She reports how the evening of the class in a secluded hut got out of hand and the men who were uninhibited by alcohol raped her. For a long time she was able to repress the events until a recent HIV diagnosis triggered her campaign for revenge. Joubert takes her grandfather's Mauser, a weapon, from her, thus preventing her planned suicide. Then he hands it over to his colleagues. When he meets Margaret Wallace, the wife of the first victim, he makes an appointment with her instead of Hannas for the opera.

background

The sad policeman is Meyer's first internationally translated novel. However, in many countries it was only published after other works by the author. Meyer made the protagonist Mat Joubert the main character in one of his novels again in 2010 in Rote Spur . Another well-known character made his first appearance as a sidekick in The Sad Policeman : Benny / Bennie Griessel, who became the protagonist of a whole series of novels from 2004 in The Hunter's Breath . Meyer described in retrospect: “His only purpose was to bring some comic relief into a book that had turned a little dark. [...] It was so much fun that I wanted to use it again and again. "

In 2010, Annette Reeker secured the TV rights to The Sad Policeman and, five years later, produced an international TV series with her production company all-in-production with 6 episodes based on her own scripts. As an actor she won Trond Espen Seim , Boris Kodjoe , Axel Milberg and Arnold Vosloo, among others . Directed by Peter Ladkani . From July 4, 2016, the station 13th Street broadcast the series Cape Town . For a sequel without a literary template, Reeker von Meyer has now acquired all the rights to the character Mat Joubert.

reception

With the sad policeman Mat Joubert, Deon Meyer draws for Tobias Gohlis the "portrait of a severely mentally ill man whose best passages come close to Lawrence Block's great drinking novel Eight Million Ways to Die ." However, the English title Dead Before Dying points to the individual fate a policeman out. Because the entire police apparatus is portrayed in the novel as a mirror image of South African society: "sick, paralyzed, exhausted, eaten up by unprocessed feelings of guilt". Even the police psychologist who promises to be cured turns out to be a “victim of barbaric violence” and unable to free herself from her emotional trauma.

According to JC Patterson of the Madison County Herald , The Sad Policeman is "an excellent character-driven fable of broken lives and the inner strength that gives us the ability to either climb out of the abyss or become one with the dark." Publishers Weekly describes the novel as "a dark, existential story with enough muscles for both thriller fans and lovers of Roman noir, " but which is not quite on the level of later novels such as Death Before Dawn .

expenditure

  • Deon Meyer: Feniks . Queillerie, Cape Town 1996, ISBN 1-874901-56-2 .
  • Deon Meyer: death before dawn . Translated from the English by Ulrich Hoffmann. Structure, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-7466-2170-4 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dead Before Dying ( memento of March 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) on Deon Meyer's website.
  2. ↑ "His only purpose was to create a bit of comic relief for a book that was a little bit dark, [...] He became such fun that I wanted to use him again and again." Quoted from: Steve Dougherty: Deon Meyer's' Cobra 'Is a Crime Novel, Cape Town Is the Star . In: The Wall Street Journal, October 2, 2014.
  3. ↑ a b Torsten Zarges: Daring series adventure at the Cape of Good Hope . On DWDL.de from July 23, 2015.
  4. ↑ Cape Town at 13th Street .
  5. ↑ Tobias Gohlis : Those who come out of trauma . In: The time of November 3, 2005.
  6. ↑ " Dead Before Dying is an excellent character-driven fable of fractured lives and the inner strength that gives one the ability to either climb out of the abyss or to become one with the darkness." JC Patterson, The Madison County Herald. Based on: Dead Before Dying ( memento of March 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) on Deon Meyer's website.
  7. ↑ "a gritty existential tale with enough muscle for thriller fans and noir aficionados alike." Quoted from: Dead Before Dying at Publishers Weekly on March 27, 2006.