Deon Meyer Books in Order (Benny Griessel)

Novelist from South Africa (who is writing in Afrikaan), Deon Meyer worked as a journalist, as an advertising copywriter, as a creative director, as manager of special projects… then as a writer, of course. Meyer specializes in writing thrillers exploring current social issues in South Africa. He is mostly known for the Benny Griessel series, the story of a flawed but empathetic cop fighting to keep his job.

How to read Deon Meyer’s Books in Order?

The Benny Griessel Series

1. Devil’s Peak (2007) – The former freedom fighter known as ‘Tiny’ has finally achieved his dream of a peaceful life. But then his beloved son is taken away from him. In that moment, he unleashes himself upon a corrupt South Africa. His victims are those guilty of crimes against children. He goes by the name of Artemis. Benny Griessel, a fading policeman on the brink of losing his job, family and self-respect, is assigned the case.
2. Thirteen Hours (2010) – They killed her best friend. Now they are chasing Rachel Anderson through the streets of Cape Town. The young tourist doesn’t dare trust anyone – except her father, back home in America. When he puts pressure on the politicians, they know that to protect their country’s image, they must find Rachel’s hiding place before the killers. So Benny Griessel – detective, maverick, and father of teenagers himself – has just 13 hours to crack open a conspiracy that threatens the whole country.
3. Seven Days (2012) – Shortly after the South African Police Services receive this threatening email, a policeman is shot by a sniper, and recovering alcoholic Benny Griessel is ordered to reopen the Sloet case. Hanneke Sloet was a sensual and ambitious lawyer. At the time of her murder, she was working on one of the biggest Black Empowerment deals in South African history. She was found dead in her luxury Cape Town apartment, a single stab wound to her chest. After forty days, the trail has gone cold. The first investigation could find no motive and no leads, only a set of nude photographs, an ex-boyfriend with a rock-solid alibi, conniving attorneys, and financial double-dealing.

4. Cobra (2014) – Why would a mathematics professor from Cambridge University, renting a holiday home outside Cape Town, require a false identity and three bodyguards? And where is he, now that they are dead? The only clue to the bodyguards’ murder is the snake engraved on the shell casings of the bullets that killed them. Investigating the massacre, Benny Griessel and his team find themselves being drawn into an international conspiracy with shocking implications.
5. Icarus (2015) – After 602 days dry, Captain Benny Griessel of the South African police services can’t take any more tragedy. So when Benny is called in to investigate a multiple homicide, it pushes him close to breaking point – a former friend and detective colleague has shot his wife and two daughters, then killed himself. Benny wants out – out of his job, his home and his relationship with his singer girlfriend, Alexa. He moves into a hotel and starts drinking. Again.
6. The Woman in the Blue Cloak (2018 – Short Story) – Benny Griessel is a cop on a mission: he plans to ask Alexa Bernard to marry him. That means he needs to buy an engagement ring – and that means he needs a loan. So Benny has a lot on his mind when he is called to a top-priority murder case. A woman’s body is discovered, naked and washed in bleach, draped on a wall beside a picturesque road above Cape Town. The identity of the victim is a mystery, as is the reason for her killing.
7. The Last Hunt (2019) – A cold case for Captain Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido of the Hawks elite police unit – not what they were looking for. And a difficult case, too. The body of Johnson Johnson, ex-cop, has been found beside a railway line. He appears to have jumped from South Africa’s – perhaps the world’s – most luxurious train, and two suspicious characters seen with him have disappeared into thin air. The regular police have already failed to make progress and others are intent on muddying the waters.

8. The Dark Flood (2022) – One last chance. Almost fired for insubordination, detectives Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido find themselves demoted, exiled from the elite Hawks unit and dispatched to the leafy streets of Stellenbosch. Working a missing persons report on student Callie de Bruin is not the level of work they are used to, but it’s all they get. And soon, it takes a dangerous, deeply disturbing turn.
9. Leo (2024)

Stand Alone

• Dead Before Dying (1999) – Mat Joubert, once a rising star of the South African police force, had it all. Then his wife was murdered, and his hopes died with her. Alcoholic, depressed, and overweight, he is a shadow of his former self. Then a new killer appears on the streets of Cape Town, murdering at random. Mat throws himself into the case, viewing it as his last chance for redemption.
• Dead at Daybreak (2000) – An antique dealer is burned with a blowtorch and executed with a single shot to the back of the head. The only clues at the scene are a scrap of paper and an unusual choice of gun. Ex-cop Zatopek ‘Zed’ van Heerden has just seven days to solve the case – an almost impossible task made even harder when he discovers that, until a few years ago, there was no proof that the victim even existed . . .
• Heart of the Hunter (2003) – The big man known as ‘Tiny’ has a past littered with violence and death. An assassin’s past that he hopes never to face again. But when his best friend is kidnapped, Tiny suddenly finds himself on the back of a stolen motorbike, speeding away from his child and the woman he loves. Tiny has only 72 hours in which to deliver a computer disk that one group of people would kill to possess, and another would kill to destroy. If he fails, his best friend dies.

• Blood Safari (2008) – Lemmer is a professional bodyguard. Silent and invisible, he never gets involved. Emma Le Roux believed her brother died twenty years ago until she sees him on the news as the prime suspect in the brutal killing of four poachers. As Lemmer and Emma join forces in pursuit of the truth, it soon becomes clear that someone is willing to do whatever it takes to stop them. When that someone tries to murder them both, Lemmer is forced to step out of the shadows for the first time in his life.
• Trackers (2011) – Milla has finally escaped her abusive husband, only to find herself at the heart of an anti-terrorist operation. emmer has agreed to protect a pair of smuggled rhinos on a thousand-kilometer journey – his strangest job yet will also be his most dangerous. And former policeman Mat already wants to quit his new job as a private investigator. But he has promised a young woman he will find her missing husband . . . wherever the trail may lead.
• Fever (2017) – Nico Storm and his father drive across a desolate South Africa, constantly alert for feral dogs, motorcycle gangs, nuclear contamination. They are among the few survivors of a virus that has killed most of the world’s population. Young as he is, Nico realizes that his superb marksmanship and cool head mean he is destined to be his father’s protector. But Willem Storm, though not a fighter, is a man with a vision. He is searching for a place that can become a refuge, a beacon of light and hope in a dark and hopeless world, a community that survivors will rebuild from the ruins. And so Amanzi is born.

If you like the Deon Meyer reading order, you may also want to see our Harry Bosch reading order or our guide to the Penn Cage series. Don’t hesitate to follow us on Twitter or Facebook to discover more book series.