Cobra — Deon Meyer

Celebrated as the King of South African crime, Deon Meyer is a world-class writer whose page-turning thrillers probe the social and racial complexities of his native country. In "Cobra," a famous English mathematician is kidnapped and his two bodyguards are killed at a guest house in the beautiful wine country outside Cape Town. It's clearly a professional hit, and the spent shell cases offer a chilling clue: Each is engraved with the head of a spitting cobra.

Meanwhile, in the city, a skilled thief is using his talents to put his sister through college. But he picks the wrong pocket, grabbing the wallet of a young American woman delivering something very valuable and dangerous to South Africa. The thief not only becomes the target of the deadly hit man known as the Cobra, but unwittingly holds the key to stopping a deadly international threat. It's up to Captain Benny Griessel and his elite investigation team to find the pickpocket and track down the Cobra as the novel hurtles toward a brilliant, heart-stopping finale on the suburban commuter trains. "Cobra" is a first-rate thriller from a writer at the top of his game.