This novella is a little gem that's slow to take off but once the woman's identity is established, it's hard to stop turning the pages. It was just as good to see Benny on the wagon and not craving alcohol as it was to see him working together with Cupido. There's a nice little twist for the whodunit, although it may not be totally unexpected for the more seasoned readers of crime.

"Early on a May morning in the depth of South Africa’s winter, a woman’s naked body, washed in bleach, is discovered on a stone wall beside the N2 highway at the top of Sir Lowry’s Pass, some thirty-five miles from Cape Town. The local investigation stalls, so the case is referred to Captain Benny Griessel and his colorful partner Vaughn Cupido of the Hawks - the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations. The woman proves to be Alicia Lewis, an expert in old Dutch Masters paintings specializing in the recovery of valuable lost art. Discovering the two men she had contacted before coming to South Africa reveals what she was seeking - a rare painting by Carel Fabritius, Rembrandt’s finest student, not seen since it disappeared from Delft in 1654. But how Lewis died, why, and at whose hand shocks even the two veteran detectives.

The Woman in the Blue Cloak is a compact jewel of a thriller, filled with Deon Meyer’s earthy dialogue, clever plotting, and the memorable characters that have peopled all of Deon Meyer’s award-winning novels."

Paintings that have disappeared from history? Yes please!

I was a bit thrown off by the formatting of this ebook as I was not always sure when one chapter began and when one ended. Additionally, it could be do to the format as an ebook but there were quite a few editorial errors.

On another note, this mystery novel, set in South Africa in the middle of May, throws readers right in the middle of the action by allowing us to discover the body well before we meet the detective who will take on the riddle of the body dumped in the middle of a highway. The detective is Benny Griessel and he has seen murder before and with his partner, who is brilliantly sarcastic and cynical, work to learn who the woman is. But one mystery gives way to another in a magnificent way, the woman's body brings us to discover a worthwhile painting has gone missing and they have another case on their hand.

Overall, this novella was quick and quite enjoyable. The mystery was fun and affable but what I truly enjoyed was the relationships between the characters.

If you haven't read Deon Meyer before, don't worry, and this novella is a great place to start. Benny Griessel is a classic tormented police officer-but he's fixing his life and planning to get engaged. When he and his partner Vaughn Cupido are assigned to the murder of an art expert visiting South Africa, they certainly didn't expect to find themselves looking into things that happened in the 17th century Holland. Benny's terrific, Capetown is a character in itself, and best of all, this is a complex mystery that can easily be read in a day. Wait- I'd rather have a longer book! Thanks to the publisher for the arc. Two thumbs up!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC of this title in exchange for an honest review.

Honestly, I was disappointed. The writing style was very elementary (this happened, then this happened, then this happened, etc). It was an exciting premise and started out well, but I quickly lost interest with the style. The police procedural bits were interesting though. Overall, it was poorly written and not well developed.

An enjoyable novella, quick and easy to read. A woman's naked body has been found beside a roadway in South Africa, killed by a quick blow to the back of the head and covered in bleach to hide DNA evidence. Local cops Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido are on the case, which leads them to a Professor of History, a dodgy PI and an out of the way farm.

Who is the woman? What brought about her death in the middle of nowhere? Read it and find out, you'll find international intrigue and a satisfying conclusion, though it could have been fleshed out a lot more. A book for a rainy afternoon.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed the novella, but had some problems with the wording. Not sure if it’s a translation or just South African slang. Sometimes I was unsure when the story changed from one set of characters to another. I’d have to go back and reread to figure out that the story had changed to one of the mini-stories.

The Woman in the Blue Cloak is the first book I read from Deon Meyer. Therefore, I was not familiar with his detective Beeny Griessel. Therefore, we are in an interesting detective story related with the search for an inknown work of art by a Dutch painter. There is a secondary story with the detective wanting to marry his girlfriend but I am not sure it was this interesting.

Originally published in the Netherlands as part of the 2017 Week of the Thriller as a gift book. Then it was published in Meyer’s native South Africa in Afrikaans, then in English in Great Britain, and finally in American for this version. The book qualifies as a novella at 160 pages and 31,000 words.

This entry in the Benny Griessel series opens with an unknown person running for his/her life while being chased by four unknown men. Then a body of a nude woman is found near a highway about 35 miles from Cape Town, South Africa. The body has been washed in bleach and posed atop a stone wall. She is soon identified as an English art historian specializing in the recovery of Dutch Masters paintings. Two detectives, Captain Benny Griessel and his partner Vaughn Cupido are assigned the case.

This novella is wonderfully written, and, while a part of a series, reads like a stand-alone book. Meyer keeps the investigation moving and isn’t stingy with giving the readers clues. However, like the detectives in the book, the reader will undoubtedly be surprised at who murdered the victim.

This short book deserves to be on every mystery reader’s TBR shelf. It is a wonderful introduction to the series and you might have just found a new series to read. There is one caveat, however, the translator left some words in the original language which was unfortunate because not all readers will be familiar with Afrikaans and since Meyer may have expected his readers to know what the words meant, the publisher of the American version should have had the words translated.

I was unfamiliar with Deon Meyer and this series so I went in blind. I was really excited about the art/art theft aspect and that it was set in South Africa as I haven't read enough books set there.

The novella begins with a bus full of people finding a dead body on the side of a bridge, calling the police in to begin an investigation. The woman's body has been bleached, making evidence scarce. Eventually, the case ends up with Benny Griessel and his partner, Vaughn Cupido, who are members of the Hawks. The Hawks are South Africa's Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI). I'm assuming it's the same as Scotland Yard (?) but I'm not sure.

Benny is in the process of looking for an engagement ring for his future bride (a former singer) and he wants it to be brilliant so she can show it off. In order to get the best bang for his bucks, he heads to a pawnshop owned by a semi-disreputable man who lets Benny know about people who have been coming into his shop with paintings featuring a woman and a blue cloak. Whilst this is an oddity, it isn't illegal and Benny is focused on the ring.

Eventually, Benny and Vaughn identify the dead woman as an American ex-pat who lives in the United Kingdom. The woman is named Alicia Lewis and had worked for the Art Loss Registry and then another company in London called Restore. Benny ends up calling Alicia's friend (Tracy Williams) in London to learn more about why Alicia traveled to South Africa.

Alicia has traveled to South Africa in search of a painting by Carel Fabritius, a pupil of Rembrandt. She had hired a private detective and talked to a professor from the local University in her attempt to track the painting down. Benny and Vaughn talk to these two men, the hotel and car rental employees and eventually they manage to track down the family rumored to have the painting. The painting ends up being of a woman in a blue cloak (hence the issues at the pawn shop, the title, and the cover).

I thought it was a nice short mystery, which could have been longer but that's just me hungry for a good art mystery. I thought the writing style was fun, which made it easier to read. It was fast, to the point and not loaded down with unneeded red herrings.

The only thing that kept me from loving every aspect of the book was the flashbacks to Delft in an unknown time. That was confusing because I'm still not sure why this person was running or who exactly they were running from. Otherwise, it was brilliant.

This review is based a Kindle ARC I received from NetGalley (thank you!).

This novella was my first introduction to both the author and two main characters (Benny Griessel and Vaughan Cupido). The setting (South Africa) and the art angle of the mystery appealed to me, so I decided to try this one. I liked the brisk pace and was able to enjoy it as a stand-alone read. It was fairly easy overall to dive without having read other entries in the Benny Griessel series. However, I did not fully understand the sections of the story set in (or near) Delft (set off by October dates) and wondered if they were related to a separate plot line from another book in the series, or if I had merely missed the connection to the scenes that took place in South Africa, which seemed to be set in May. Years aren't provided in either timeline. Were the October scenes set in modern day (if so, before or after the crime that occurred in May? and were they connected to those events?) or were they a flashback to the days of Rembrandt when the original painting went missing from the Netherlands? I'm not entirely clear.

The investigation into the death of the American art expert moved along quickly, but felt a little rushed at the end. One of the key findings in the investigation wasn't revealed until close to the end, so the reader would not have been able to reach the same conclusion on their own. Perhaps that is reflective of how a real police investigation would unfold, when fair play rules aren't necessarily present.

Nevertheless, this was a fast read and provided me with a glimpse into the Benny Griessel series. If in the future I'm in the mood for a grittier police procedural featuring interesting characters and set in a faraway location, this series might be a good option.

Thank you to NetGalley, Atlantic Monthly Press and Deon Meyer for an ARC ebook copy to review. As always, an honest review from me.

I decided to DNF the book almost halfway through. The premise and mystery had seemed interesting, but when I was the reading I wasn’t drawn in. Truthfully, I felt very indifferent to the whole story. I could have finished it, as it’s a very short book. But life’s too short to read books that don’t bring you joy. I don’t think my opinions on the story would have changed even if I had read more pages. I haven’t read other books by the author before, so I don’t know if The Woman in the Blue Cloak is similar or different to the author’s usual writing style. It was by no means a bad book, so if it interests you or if you have enjoyed the author’s other works then give it a go.

I had went into this novel never having read a Meyer book/ Griessel Cape Town Detective book. This was a short novella of 150 pages, but kept me engaged the entire time.
I really enjoyed the blending of characters and timelines into one murder mystery.
The story was entertaining and easy enough to read in one sitting.

A short gem of a novel featuring Benny Griessel, a South African detective. A woman's naked body washes up on the beach and Griessel is thrust into action. Meyer is a very accomplished writer, and in a few pages he brings his characters to life and manages to engage the reader with twisty plots. I love learning about different cultures. And I love evocative crime fiction. So this book was a win-win for me.

Thanks to Grove Atlantic Books and Netgalley for providing me with a review copy of this eBook. The comments about it are my own.
This is a clever and colourful police procedural murder mystery novella set in the South African city of Cape Town. It introduced me to Benny Griessel, a captain in an elite branch of the South African police known as The Hawks. He and his quirky partner Vaughn Cupido make an unlikely pair of detectives, which helps make the story interesting to read.
The murder mystery involves a woman's naked body found without any identification in a rural area on the city's outskirts. The police investigation is hampered by the body having been rinsed in bleach. The press dubs the case the Bleached Body Homicide. Bernie and Cupido follow a trail which eventually leads them to a mysterious art expert, a retired history professor, a reclusive farming family and an unsavoury ex-cop turned private detective. In due course, there's a satisfying conclusion to the mystery.
Benny is as interesting as the murder mystery. He's a recovering alcoholic getting a fresh start, which includes losing weight, taking up cycling and entering a second marriage with another recovering alcoholic. He needs to find money to buy an engagement ring for his fiance and there's an amusing sidebar about him applying for a bank loan.
This story can easily be read as a standalone novel, even though there are several books in the Bernie Griessel series. It has been translated into English from Afrikaans without any loss of readability.
Recommended

Finding a naked dead body is frightening. When a busload of tourists see her they tell the bus driver he has to call the police. He doesn't want to because it will slow the trip down but they are insistent and the women all stand around to hide the body and pray for the woman. When the police arrive, they are stumped about who she is. With no clothing and no purse or phone, they just have the body. She's been bleached and was evidently dead from a hit on the head. But she's also been moved, so there is no evidence at the site. They have their work cut out for them.

Grove Atlantic and Net Galley allowed me to read this book for review (thank you). It will be published May 7th.

They find she is an American who has been living in a hotel. She's an art expert who was trying to find a missing painting. It's rumored it has been painted by Rembrant's best student but no one knows where it is.

She knows which family inherited it, so she looks the family up and traces down the children (who are adults now) and talks to them about the picture. When she finally locates it, she goes to see it in person. Not long after that she's dead body on display to the world.

The police talk to the hotel staff and work on finding her car. They try to trace her movements. Will they find the murderer?

The story is full of art restoration facts as well as details about the murder. This was a good read.

My only complaint is that I wish The Woman in the Blue Cloak had been longer. I really enjoy the Benny Griessel series...he feels very real to me, in his imperfections and struggles. Looking forward to the next book in the series.

law-enforcement, murder-investigation, procedural, detective, South Africa

***** Fascinating story! A woman's body is found in strange circumstances and turns out to be an American working in England as an expert in a particular style of paintings. The special detectives are assigned the case which takes many twists, blind alleys, and red herrings. Excellent!
It appears that this is one in a series led by Detective Benny Griessel and his partner Detective Vaughn Cupido of the Priority Crime Investigations. I know that I will be looking for more of these!
I requested and received a free ebook copy from Grove Atlantic/Atlantic Monthly Press via Netgalley. Thank you!

I was very excited to receive this book because numerous book club members are huge fans of Deon Meyer. So I really wanted to like the book, sadly this did not happen.

It is a Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido novel, although at 160 pages it barely constitutes one. A woman is found dead and covered in bleach at a tourist hot spot in Cape Town. They first have to trace her identity in order to find her killer. This must be the easiest murder ever solved, rather like an episode of "Murder She Wrote". I realise the colloquialisms are used to express the South African culture but I felt that they were completely overdone.

I was so prepared to like this book, what a disappointment, furthermore there is no ways I would pay nearly $20 for a kindle edition of a 160 page book.

Thank you to #Netgalley and #AtlanticPress for an advanced copy of #TheWomanintheBlueCloak in exchange for my honest review.

I've never read a Deon Meyer book before and can't recall reading a fiction book set in South Africa, and now I'll make sure it isn't my last. The detectives were fun characters, and the art aspect was interesting and well done.