TRACKERS: DEON MEYER

An interesting and intense novel once again from Meyer, with three clear narratives threads that we assume will pull together by the end of the novel.  The first involves a 40 year old housewife, Mila, abused by both her husband and ungrateful son.  She decides to leave them, finds a job and later realizes she is working for the Presidential Intelligence Agency.  She quietly becomes a sleuth, ends up coincidentally starting up a relationship with an individual who she learns, too late, is being sought by the government for acting as an arms broker.  The second story involves Lemmer, a former bodyguard, now retired who is asked to help escort two endangered black rhinos into South Africa for safe keeping.  The caravan is set upon by armed robbers, intent on finding contraband which they think is hidden on the truck.  We later find out that the vet, named Flea, who has organized this rescue has hidden the contraband (diamonds) in the hard skins of the rhinos.  The third story, seemingly unrelated to the first two, revolves around Matt Joubert, a former police superintendent who we have met in  previous novels.  He has left the force and works for a Private Investigation Agency with one goal in mind: to make money, with little sympathy for those who don't have money.  Matt's job is to hunt down, or track, a missing husband.  It's a fairly straight forward procedure although it does connect somewhat to the other stories.  Joubert seems to be the conscience of South Africa, loyal, wanting to do the right thing, the kind of man we wish had stayed with the police force.

I have to admit the three stories, and Islamic terrorists which I forgot to mention, don't tie together very well by the end but that doesn't matter because each of the three characters and their stories are interesting in themselves.  We do get a vivid picture of the rapidly changing landscape of South Africa, after apartheid and Nelson Mandela, as affirmative action, black politics, and bureaucracy strangle the system as well as the individual.