Icarus

Selected by Marcel Berlins in The Times as one of the 50 best crime novels of the last 50 years: ''Deon Meyer is acclaimed for his portrayals of crime and the police after the end of apartheid. Non-white detectives hold positions once monopolised by their white bosses, and the tensions are high''

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.

But Benny''s unique talent is urgently required to help investigate another crime - the high profile murder of Ernst Richter, MD of a new tech startup, Alibi, whose body is discovered buried in the sand dunes north of Cape Town. Alibi is a service that creates false appointments, documents and phone calls to enable people to cheat on their partners. It has made Richter one of the most notorious people in South Africa. Can Benny pull together the strands of his life in time to catch the killer?