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  • Cape Town Thriller Delivers Murder, blood, Revenge, and Redemption5

    Mack Lundy I owe my interest in South African crime writers to Roger Smith. I was hooked with his first book Mixed Blood and I enjoyed Wake Up Dead even more. This is a fast paced, very violent, crime thriller set in Cape Town, South Africa, mostly in the Cape Flats area. Thrillers can be disposable entertainment but Smith's books combine three criteria that make a book last for me: story, characters, and location. Smith takes these up a level in Wake Up Dead. He doesn't sacrifice character for story instead he populates the book with well developed, interesting people that include common variety street thugs and ex-cons, a scary psychopath in love, a former model from the U.S named Roxy, and an ex-cop/ex-mercenary product of the Flats with the great name of Billy Afrika. Billy is back in town to get what is owed (legitimately) to him and Roxy is the means to that end. He is a little better than the forces he is up against but he has a depth that makes him intriguing. Smith keeps several plot threads working and the body count mounting as he brings everyone together for a satisfying ending. The location of the story is very important. The vivid descriptions of the Cape Flats area of Cape Town brought me forcefully into the story. The Flats were apartheid's dumping grounds, where the government forced non-whites to live. It is also home to gangs and drug trade. Think of the Baltimore of the HBO show, The Wire, only much more dangerous. Wake Up Dead does have scenes of brutal physical violence but the violence is a reflection of the environment and not there for its own sake. by Mack Lundy

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