Police work is a difficult business in everywhere but the most authoritarian states. Resources are limited, criminals resourceful, the public ungrateful and politicians demanding and unhelpful.
But in the New South Africa, as depicted by Afrikaans author Deon Meyer, it is all this and more. As well as the usual stresses of the job Cape Town detective Benny Griessel and his colleagues operate under the searching microscope of the politics of race and tribalism and are hand-cuffed by damaging inter-departmental rivalry.
First and foremost it was this insight into modern South Africa that I most enjoyed in Thirteen Hours, the sixth of Meyer's books to be translated into English. Meyer is a shrewd observer of personal motivation, ambition and insecurity and through the collective depiction of a fascinating cast of characters - from Griessel, a white detective, to his Xhosa partner Vusi Ndabeni, as well as Zulu and coloured colleagues - he paints a fascinating portait of a nation that has been miraculously reborn but is now experiencing the growing pains of infancy. The political backdrop to the novel is the transfer of power from Thabo Mbeki to Jacob Zuma - a move that makes the Xhosa fear.
Griessel himself epitomizes the uncertainties. He is enduring a period of separation from his wife while trying to sober up. His children are overseas or drifiting. And then he is thrust into a new role in the police service he is to act as a mentor for a number of new black detectives, including Vusi, Franssman Dekker, a a coloured man with a chip the size of Table Mountain on his shoulder and a female Zulu detective who lives exclusively on KFC and is cruelly but accurately continuously described as the "fat detective" - which suggests that while the rainbow nation may have made significant progress against some forms of discrimination there is work to do in other areas.
Griessel feels emasculated in his role, needing to tread a careful path between guiding his new charges and not interfering too much in their work. Each has their own insecurities and incompetences and Griessel proves a surprisingly sensitive mentor helping each to the right conclusions. The dynamic between these characters - suffused with petty jealousies, prejudices and suspicion - is fascinating and one of the great strengths of the book.
And then there is the plot, which is pretty breathtaking. In the space of 90 minutes, Griessel and his novices are called out to two murder scenes: one the violent death of a young female American backpacker("trouble" as the characters regularly remark) and a wealthy music producer (more trouble).
At the same time we are introduced to a second American backpacker who is being pursued by the same mixed race group apparently responsible for the death of her friend. Griessel shuttles back and forth between the two crimes, getting through an extraordinary number of interviews, theories and pressurised conversations with superiors as the day proceeds.
The structure of the novel raises the suspense levels, as it divides the story into chunks of 60-90 minutes following the course of the day. Meyer packs an amazing amount into each: rising political pressure to find the second American student; conflict between various agencies involved in the investigations; the constant intrusion of Griessel's own fractured person life; and contact with a vibrant range of South Africans, each with their own perspective on the forces of law and order and the societal change they are undergoing.
And it is gripping: tense, cleverly plotted and beautifully balanced between action, investigation and social comment. And all of it rises towards a crescendo that is pitched to perfection.
Thirteen Hours is a fine novel and South Africa a very attractive destination on the global crime fiction tour.
