Death before dawn
Death before dawn (original in Afrikaans , original title: Orion ) is a crime novel by the South African writer Deon Meyer from the year 2000. The German translation by Karl-Heinz Ebnet was first published in 2003 by Knaur under the title Tod im Morgengrauen . Since the 2006 edition by Aufbau Verlag , the title has been changed to Death Before Dawn .
content
The rundown private detective and former police officer Zatopek "Zet" van Heerden is the last hope of lawyer Hope Beneke to help her client Wilma van Aas to get her inheritance. Her partner, the antique dealer Johannes Jacobus Smit, was attacked a year ago and brutally murdered. With the contents of his walk-in safe, his will has also disappeared. After the police investigations have fizzled out, van Heerden has exactly one week to track down the will, otherwise Smit's fortune will fall to the South African state.
In flashbacks, van Heerden's background is rolled out. After the early death of his father Emile, who named him after the Czech long-distance runner Emil Zátopek , he was raised by his mother Joan, a well-known South African artist, alone. The unexplained sex murder of the neighbor Baby Marnewick, the secret target of his adolescent longings, proves to be formative for the adolescent. He is studying police science and is doing a study on serial killers , in the course of which he succeeds in solving the murder of Baby Marnewick. Academic life cannot satisfy him and he switches to active police service. Together with Willem Nagel, he will soon form the most successful team in the Cape Town homicide squad. But then he begins an affair with his colleague's wife, and his indecision about an assignment costs Nagel his life. Van Heerden breaks because of his feelings of guilt, quits the police service and takes refuge in alcohol and self-pity, until Hope Beneke's assignment and her personal affection arouse new courage in him.
The search for the will develops an unexpected dynamic when van Heerden discovers that Smit lived under a false name and that his real name was Rupert de Jager. He turns to the public with a photo of the deceased, whereupon not only his mother reports, but also the military intelligence service tries to stop the investigations into the threat to national security. It gradually emerges that the history of the case lies in 1976 in Angola . The young recruit de Jager was deployed in a reconnaissance group of the South African army during the civil war in Angola . After an incident in which they accidentally shot their own paratroopers, the squad got out of control. Sergeant Bushy Schlebusch and his right-hand man Michael "Sprenkel" Venter shot all soldiers who refused to shut up. Eventually they seized a shipment of diamonds that the Americans were supposed to smuggle out of Angola and went into hiding. De Jager supported them and received his share of the booty, while the defeated Americans as well as the South Africans hushed up the broken deal. Schlebusch and Venter founded an agency for paramilitary mercenaries. When it was no longer profitable in politically transformed South Africa after the end of apartheid , they remembered the share of the booty of their old companion de Jager and attacked him.
For a long time everything points to the psychopath Schlebusch as de Jager's murderer, but eventually he is found dead too. Behind the series of murders is his former partner "Sprenkel" Venter, who was also the driving force in Angola. His mercenaries raid van Heerden's house and bring Hope Beneke into their power. Together with the gigantic Xhosa Thobela "Tiny" Mpayipheli, who had been assigned to guard by the crime boss Orlando, van Heerden succeeds in freeing the lawyer and arresting the murderer. Orlando receives the stolen diamonds, Wilma van Aas her inheritance. Venter is found dead in his cell, which is why the Angolan diamond deal will never be the subject of a lawsuit and thus become public. Zatopek van Heerden, on the other hand, has overcome his personal crisis and is writing down his memoirs.
reception
The novel won the South African ATKV Award for Prose in 2001 and in its French translation the Grand prix de littérature policière 2003 and the Prix Mystère de la critique 2004. In 2006 South African television produced a 10-part TV series directed by Gerrit Schoonhoven. The main role of Zatopek van Heerden was played by Neil Sandilands.
Dick Adler welcomed Deon Meyer in the Chicago Tribune as the new voice in the thriller arena, which reports from a largely unknown part of the world in the setting of South Africa in transition after apartheid. Compared to the sequel The Hunter's Heart , in which the Xhosa warrior "Tiny" Mpayipheli is hunted across the country, Death Before Dawn is a more traditional Roman noir full of anger and pain. In the New York Times, Marilyn Stasio wished less of Zatopek's fear of life and more of Thobela's philosophical reflection on the state of the country in the successor. For Entertainment Weekly , the plot, carried by more psychological tension than hard action, skilfully alternates between the murder investigation in the presence of the plot and van Heerden's tragic past. According to Cédric Fabre in L'Humanité , Meyer explores the downside of the human condition in his novel and turns out to be one of the greats of South African literature.
expenditure
- Deon Meyer: Orion . Human & Rousseau, Cape Town 2000, ISBN 0-7981-4049-6 (afrikaans).
- Deon Meyer: Death at dawn . Translated from the English by Karl-Heinz Ebnet. Knaur, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-426-62128-2 .
- Deon Meyer: death before dawn . Translated from the English by Karl-Heinz Ebnet. Structure, Berlin 2006, ISBN 3-7466-2280-8 .
Web links
- Dead at Daybreak by Deon Meyer on complete-review.com.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dead at Daybreak ( Memento of the original from June 13, 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.
- ↑ Orion in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ Dick Adler: Bloody journeys through history, with murder as the guide . In: Chicago Tribune, August 21, 2005.
- ↑ Marilyn Stasio: Last Dance . In: The New York Times, September 11, 2005.
- ↑ EW reviews four hot new thrillers . In: Entertainment Weekly, August 19, 2005.
- ^ Cédric Fabre: Romans noirs. L'écrivain Sud-africain Deon Meyer explore avec brio les coulisses d'une société où coupables et victimes parfois se confondent. In: L'Humanité of April 24, 2003.
