Dead Before Dying: A Novel - Hardcover

AUTHORBIO: Deon Meyer is an internationally renowned crime writer who also works as a journalist and internet consultant. He lives in Cape Town, South Africa.

*Starred Review* Hulking police captain Mat Joubert is near suicidal after the death of his wife, who was killed in the line of duty as an undercover agent. Now he's living in a kind of purgatory, an overweight chain-smoker who is inattentive to his work in the Cape Town Murder and Robbery Department. A new commanding officer, a political appointee, is on a tear, touting the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. He orders Joubert to see a psychiatrist and gives him one last chance to prove himself, putting him in charge of an investigation into a serial killer who uses a 100-year-old German handgun. Joubert desperately races to find a connection among the victims, a case the newspapers are reveling in, which, in turn, increases the pressure to solve it. Meanwhile, in prosaic fashion, Joubert struggles to bring himself back to life by chucking the cigarettes, cooking low-cal meals, and taking up swimming. Meyer subtly juxtaposes the heartbreak of the victims' families with the heartbroken detective assigned to their cases. Using humor and pathos in equal measure, Meyer builds a deeply moving portrait of a man in search of his own dignity, reclaiming his life one pool lap at a time. Joanne Wilkinson
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