Crime Beat

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Father Xmas gets gatvol, groans, ‘Adjectival it!’
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This is Crime Beat’s last post for 2009. We wish everyone who happens upon the site in the next four weeks everything of the best for the season and a wow of a new year. We’ll be back on Monday 11 January 2010.
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Special thanks for the wonderful illustration to Brandon Carstens (of the graphic novel, Project H, fame).
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From the tail-end of 2009 it looks as if the previous year, 2008, will go down in South African English crime fiction annals as our break-out year. During those momentous twelve months there were books by the stalwarts, Deon Meyer and Richard Kunzmann, but also a whole lot of new names, Jassy Mackenzie, Michael Stanley, Angela Makholwa, Andrew Gray, Peter Church, Diale Tlholwe, Sue Rabie, and Tracy Gilpin hit the bookshops. The krimi scene looked like it was shaping up. Question is, did 2009 deliver? Here are Crime Beat’s takes on the English and Afrikaans scenes in 2009.

Did 2009 deliver? Well, I reckon so. Not only did two of the debut writers, Jassy Mackenzie and Michael Stanley, make good on their promise with new titles – My Brother’s Keeper and A Deadly Trade respectively – but a hardboiled new name took the opening months of the year by storm. I’m talking about Roger Smith and his brutal Mixed Blood which added another dimension to our crime fiction. Here is the local representative of the Richard Stark tradition with no-nonsence plots and a kind of in-your-face violence which left many readers gasping. The movie rights of his book were immediately snapped up and as the year went on he found publishers in a number of countries.

Also in the first half of the year came another thriller from Rob Marsh, Beasts of Prey. That was followed by debuts from Brandon Carstens with a graphic novel, Project H, Sarah Lotz with a legal thriller called Exhibit A that opened a new vein in our krimi tradition, and Malla Nunn’s A Beautiful Place to Die. Although Nunn is Australian she got a look-in because she was born in Swaziland and her book is set in South Africa during the 1950s.

Undoubtedly the two big end-of-year bonanzas were the return of Wessel Ebersohn after nineteen years of silence with a Yudel Gordon thriller, The October Killings, and the third nailbiter in Margie Orford’s Clare Hart series, Daddy’s Girl.

The year was also marked by the publication of the first crime fiction anthology, Bad Company edited by Joanne Hichens which featured seventeen writers, almost the entire clutch of English crime writers plus a couple from other language groups. Hot on the heels of that came the reissuing of some titles: all of Deon Meyer’s (not the first time and certainly not the last in his career), Margie Orford’s Like Clockwork and my own Payback. The signs are positive, even if the sales are lagging behind.

In fact the sluggish sales figures remain a mystery. The reviewers are raving (as two recent Crime Beat features on Margie Orford and Jassy Mackenzie reveal), and crime fiction gets a fair amount of attention at the various festivals. It had a place at the Time of the Writer week in Durban, featured in panel discussions at the Franschhoek Literary Festival, got an outing at the Cape Town Book Fair, was the subject of a WISER conference in Johannesburg, and will be holding forth at UCT’s Summer School in January. The public profile couldn’t be better.

What awaits in 2010? Well, a number of writers will be back consolidating their careers and a couple of new ones will add their voices to the genre. But more about that in January. Until then, best wishes and may the new year herald more exciting writing.

And now Chanette’s take on the Afrikaans scene:

Ons kan nou maar amptelik en kategories verklaar wat ons almal weet, en wat publikasies in 2009 bevestig: Afrikaans beleef tans ’n ongekende bloeitydperk van misdaadfiksie in sy vele gedaantes.

My voorspelling: Toekomstige opstellers van Perspektief en Profiel en dergelike boeke sal daaraan erkenning moet gee en studente sal eksamenvrae daaroor kry soos ons oor die Sestigers. En ja, daar sal nog ’n vak soos Afrikaans bestaan, juis omdat misdaad- en ander ontspanningsfiksie lesers teruggelok het Afrikaans toe.

Die oes was ryk vanjaar. Sowel staatmakers as ’n hele paar debutante het ons vermaak en dis opvallend dat die net van misdaadfiksie se sub-genres al wyer gespan word.

Francois Bloemhof verryk ons met twee boeke. Harde woorde, die derde speursersant Alma van der Pool-boek, het opspraak verwek toe ‘n paar SA skrywers en letterkundige figure uit die “regte lewe” hulle verskyning in die storie gemaak het. Afspraak in Venesië is die tweede spioenasieroman in die reeks wat met Rooi Luiperd afgeskop het.

’n Misdaadfiksie jaar is nie ’n goeie een sonder ’n Deon Meyer boek nie en hy vermaak ons dié jaar met die bundel Karoonag en ander verhale. Chanette Paul se Boheem, die derde in die Gys Niemand-reeks waarin liefde en misdaad mekaar ontmoet, het ook die jaar verskyn. Piet Steyn volg sy Pine Pienaar debuut op met die tweede riller in die speurreeks, getitel Bottelnek. Joernalis, Chris Karsten wat bekend is vir sy reeks oor ware Suid Afrikaanse misdade, pak met ’n sielkundige speurriller, Seisoen van sonde, die fiktiewe sy van die saak aan – en met groot sukses.

Die jaar het ook opwindende nuwelinge opgelewer. Karin Brynard se debuut Plaasmoord kry wonderlike resensies en dit klink asof ons nog baie meer uit dié joernalis se pen kan verwag. Bankier, Tinus Viviers, debuteer met Geld wat stom is waarin hy finansiële misdaad en moord kombineer. Wynand Coetzer debuteer met Skerpioen. Die boek val nie in die gewone voeë van populêre misdaadfiksie nie, maar word ’n kombinasie van sielkundige speurverhaal en innerlike ontdekkingstog waarin mitologie ’n groot rol speel en ’n veelheid van kulture geïntegreer word.

Opwindende Krimi-nuus in 2009:

Deon Meyer se 13 Uur stap met ’n wavrag pryse weg en word boonop verfilm. Piet Steyn (Snoeiskêr) en Riana Mouton (Reuk van die dood) is albei met debute finaliste in die ATKV-Veertjie se spanningsafdeling.

Daarmee vrede, seëninge en Kersgroete – en lekker lees!