I started this book during the 48 Hour Book Challenge but didn't get it finished until tonight (I spent the last 2 hours reading in Starbucks with my husband). This was a great book. Another murder-mystery (I should have joined a murder mystery challenge this year) but a different kind because it is set in South Africa.
From Amazon.com, "Former mercenary Thobela Mpayipheli is trying to live a peaceful life, but these plans are shattered when his eight-year-old son, Pakamile, is shot dead. The two gunmen responsible escape before sentencing, and the grieving father decides to take matters into his own hands. As he pursues his son's killers, Mpayipheli begins to target pedophiles and other perpetrators of violence against children, meting out justice with a Xhosa tribal sword called an assegai.Dubbed Artemis by the papers as the killings increase, Mpayipheli becomes a kind of folk hero to the people of Capetown. Insp. Benny Griessel, an aging alcoholic whose struggles with the bottle have all but cost him his family and his life, works the case with a desperate intensity. Griessel finds an unlikely ally in Christine van Rooyen, a young prostitute, who lures the detective into a very dangerous plan of her own when her young daughter goes missing."
I really liked this book. I enjoyed reading about South Africa but not in a literary novel sort of way. I liked that this book was a good murder mystery but was really culturally different from ones that I am used to reading. I really liked the character of Thobela. My heart broke for him when his son was killed. The author did a great job in making the reader feel that he was justified in killing the people that he did. Of course there are twists and when it is all over you don't really know who was right or wrong. Makes you really think about your own views and values. I will be picking up more of his books.
Rating - 4
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