Heart of the Hunter

by Deon Meyer

Overview

Tiny Mpayipheli, a giant man with a gentle demeanor, once earned his living as a government gun for hire. Now leading a quiet, ordered life in the countryside, he is reluctantly summoned back into the game when a trusted old friend is kidnapped. With just seventy-two hours to deliver the ransom, with an army of security forces deployed to stop him, and with a diabolical double agent perilously close to assuming absolute power, Tiny races a hijacked motorcycle across the wilds of backcountry Africa in a thrilling epic adventure.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802145789
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	03/06/2012
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	4.10(w) x 6.80(h) x 1.60(d)

About the Author

Deon Meyer is the internationally acclaimed, prizewinning author of twelve thrillers, including The Woman in the Blue Cloak, Fever, Icarus, Cobra, Seven Days, and the Barry Award-winning Thirteen Hours. His books have been published in twenty-seven languages. He lives in Stellenbosch, South Africa.

Simon Vance, a former BBC Radio presenter and newsreader, is a full-time actor who has appeared on both stage and television. He has recorded over eight hundred audiobooks and has earned five coveted Audie Awards, and he has won fifty-seven Earphones Awards from AudioFile magazine, which has named him a Golden Voice.

What People are Saying About This

Michael Connelly

“This guy is really good. Deon Meyer hooked me with this one right from the start. Heart of the Hunter is a thriller with some weight attached, and that is a rare find.”
—Michael Connelly

Editorial Reviews

Heart of the Hunter is most obviously a rip-roaring adventure, a portrait of spy-world duplicity and a look at South Africa's post-apartheid politics. But this thriller is also an ambitious attempt to create a mythic hero. Thobela works admirably as a character, but ultimately he is a symbol of all that is strong and long-suffering in Africa and Africans. Meyer is trying to show us the soul of a continent, and to a considerable degree he succeeds.
— The Washington Post

Patrick Anderson

Out of post-apartheid South Africa comes a thriller good enough to and nip at the heels of le Carre. Thobela Mpayipheli is six-foot-three, a giant of a man so (naturally) they call him "Tiny." During the Struggle, he was an ANC (African National Congress) hero, a ferocious and decorated fighter. But that was then: Tiny's now is Miriam Nzuluwazi, the "tall, lean, strong and beautiful woman" who kisses him each night when he arrives home from his low-level, low-profile job in Cape Town. Miriam, her small son, their small house, that's Tiny modest life-and it's a life he loves. But the advent of a perfectly ordinary woman named Monica Kleintjes sends it crashing. Monica is the daughter of old comrade Johnny Kleintjes, who is in serious trouble, and to whom Tiny owes a debt of honor. If he fails to deliver a certain information-packed disk to a certain blood-thirsty band of terrorists, Johnny's a dead man, Monica tells him, handing him the disk. Tiny, a closet Romantic, as perhaps all great warriors are at their core, believes he has no choice but to accept the mission. Naturally, the disk turns out to be eagerly sought by a variety of inimical entities: among them, the CIA, al Qaeda, and the still fledgling South African government. As he zigzags through Africa on a stolen motorcycle, Tiny, now an object of intense and frequently murderous interest, tries, for the sake of survival, to sort out the conflicting realities governing his situation. He discovers, however, that like the desperate ex-hero on the BMW bike, "the truth is a moving target."Wonderful setting; rich, colorful cast, headed by a valiant/vulnerable protagonist who makes empathy easy. Impossibly convoluted, of course-hey, it'sa suspense novel-but fans of the genre won't want to miss Meyer's US debut. Agent: Isobel Dixon/Blake Friedmann

Kirkus Reviews

Heart of the Hunter is the dark, explosive side of Alexander McCall Smith’s Botswana books, as full of love for the vast beauty of the country but also riddled by the anger of South Africa’s recent racial and political struggles.”
—Chicago Tribune

“A stellar performance. . . . Deon Meyer’s well-turned story and Vance’s top-notch narration make this a compelling listen.”
—AudioFile

“[Vance’s] performance feels spontaneous, off the cuff, and fresh. The gripping story . . . is a mesmerizing listen, thanks to Vance’s precise reading.”
—Booklist

From the Publisher

[Vance’s] performance feels spontaneous, off the cuff, and fresh. The gripping story . . . is a mesmerizing listen, thanks to Vance’s precise reading.”
—Booklist

Booklist

Heart of the Hunter is the dark, explosive side of Alexander McCall Smith’s Botswana books, as full of love for the vast beauty of the country but also riddled by the anger of South Africa’s recent racial and political struggles.”
—Chicago Tribune

Chicago Tribune