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Review: Hammerman: A Walking Shadow by Mike Nicol

About this book (from Penguin Books SA)

Fish Pescado, Vicki Kahn and one last case.

Children find a body in the Strandfontein sand dunes. A populist politician is gunned down outside parliament. His number two executed in bed with a high-class escort. A cabinet minister shot leaving a security estate. A cop assassinated in his car. Another in his beach house. And it all ties back to the murder of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme in 1986 – as private investigator Fish Pescado is about to discover. He’s on the case, hunting a rogue agent through industrial estates, retirement homes, a farm in the Moordenaars Karoo. He’s also convinced someone’s out to kill his lover Vicki Kahn, lying in a coma in hospital. But he can’t watch over her all the time.

Fish and Vicki are about to get hit by history.
And history can be brutal, bloody and deadly.

My thoughts (always spoiler-free):

This is my first Mike Nicol read.  So by that, you can probably figure out that I did not realise that “Hammerman” is part of a series, and definitely not that it is in fact the final book in the series as well.  But, the book blurb sounded intriguing to me, and I was in the mood for a page-turning local thriller, so I dived right in!

As with all books that make up part of a series, I did realise that there were some previous story-lines that I may be was missing out on, but I will not call it a ‘deal breaker’ though.  This truly South African political thriller is easy to read and even easier to get dragged in to and get invested in.  Familiar locations (set around Cape Town and the Karoo), featuring populist political characters (names like Cesar Mapula and Boyd Mvambu makes them almost instantly recognisable), Apartheid-era secrets, a dashing surfer/private investigator – what more can you ask for?  It all plays off like a fast-paced action movie – and that was actually my thought while reading this, I could picture every single scene.  That is one of the fantastic things about reading the works of local authors, not so?

I must admit, I did stumble a bit over some of the Afrikaans lingo used, but it I also realise that it the author probably used phonetic spelling.  Which is fine in our multi-lingual and multi-cultural country!  I have not read a lot of local thrillers yet, but if “Hammerman” is anything to go by, I must definitely add a few more on my TBR list.

With thanks to Penguin Book SA for the opportunity to read this book, in exchange for an honest review.