The Dark Flood is a detective novel written by Deon Meyer as the seventh installment of the Benny Griessel Mysteries Originally published in Afrikaans by Human and Rousseau in 2020, the novel was translated by K.L. Seegers into English and published in the U.S and UK in 2022. It follows two detectives, Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido, who are demoted from the elite Hawks unit of the South African Police Service (SAPS) and Sandra Steenberg, a real-estate agent in Stellenbosch, South Africa.
Plot The novel opens with a cash-in-transit heist which Captains Benny Griesel and Vaughn Cupido are charged to prevent. The operation quickly turns chaotic, and a shootout occurs. Vaughn Cupido defuses a hostage situation and Griessel saves Phila Zamisa from being shot. An illegal firearm is confiscated and sent to Buddy Fick.
Later, Griesel and Cupido face a disciplinary hearing for insubordination concerning events in the previous installment, The Last Hunt. They are demoted to Warrant Officers, put on temporary leave, and reassigned to Laingsburg, South Africa.
While on leave, Warrant Officers Griesel and Cupido receive several mysterious notes from an unknown source, revealing pictures of General Khaba, a provincial commander, who holds a confiscated illegal weapon, specifically an S & W 500 revolver. A last note requests a meeting at the waterfront. The detectives investigate off-book and Mbali Kaleni supports them.
When they return to work, their new boss is the strict Colonel Witkop Jansen. Captain Rowan Geneke gives them their first assignment, which is a missing persons case for a college student named Calvyn “Callie” Wilhelm de Bruin. They learn that Callie was interested in hacking and that someone in a hoodie entered his apartment using his student ID after he went missing. The detectives also learn that his hard drive his missing.
Their best lead is Roland “The Rolster” Parker, the only “friend” Callie has been seen with by witnesses. They question him several times at his house in Cloetesville, with few results. They later learn that Parker was a cat burglar and that, rather than making mundane Droppa deliveries for Callie as stated, Parker had helped Callie procure and sell illegal items. Callie scouted Parker by hacking the police Krim system and clearing his criminal record. They find footage of Parker selling a Krugerrand, illegally obtained (Callie located by hacking and Parker procured), to a pawn shop. They also discover Callie's considerable hidden assets at Capitec Bank, separate from his FNB account.
At a secret meeting with Chriselda Plaatjies, Milo April's fiancé, the detective duo and Mbali Kaleni learn that April was killed because he discovered that corrupt officers were selling illegal, confiscated weapons to gangs.
Simultaneously, a subplot occurs throughout the novel involving a real-estate agent, Sandra Steenberg. Her husband Josef is an academic on sabbatical to write a book, and she has two children, Anke and Bianca. She has financial trouble after multi-billionaire Jasper Boonstra's corruption and legal troubles caused a crash in the local economy. Ironically, she begins work to secretly sell one of Boonstra's expensive properties, Donkerdrif, to cure this problem. She faces sexual harassment and innuendo both from Boonstra and her boss, Charlie Benson, throughout this process. She pursues several leads to sell the property, but ultimately finds success through Mareli Volster, a lawyer representing a wealthy client. Right as she is almost finished, she thinks Boonstra touched her rear and pushes him down the stairs of his house, killing him. She panics and hides the body in a property owned by clients. Next door, she sees Callie de Bruin and anonymously tips the police off, holding civic duty over personal preservation.
Griessel investigates Boonstra's death. Boonstra's lawyer, Meinhardt Sarazin, tries to inhibit the investigation while his wife, Lettie, helps Sandra, who she saw commit the crime on camera. Griessel is interrupted when Steenberg tips off the police and joins Cupdio and Phila Zamisa in the operation to rescue Callie. Cupido is shot, not fatally, and Callie is rescued. They learn that he discovered Buddy Fick's illegal selling of police confiscated firearms to gangs, as Milo April did, while he was hacking to locate weapons to sell for high prices to America. He used this information to blackmail Fick instead but was kidnapped and tortured. The man in the hoodie was a gang member who stole the computer hard drive to prevent Callie's data-bomb reveal of the conspiracy, which would have happened regardless. Zamisa stops Griessel from killing Fick. Steenberg's crime is not discovered.
Main characters Warrant Officer Benjamin (Benny) Griessel: The main character of the novel. A recovering alcoholic, he struggles against the temptation to drink. He is divorced and has a daughter and son, Fritz, whom he has a strained relationship with and whose film school tuition he is paying. Warrant Officer Vaughn Cupido: Benny Griessel's partner. He has a girlfriend whom he met and pursued a relationship with in the previous installment, The Last Hunt. Other characters note that his is loud and is very confident in himself. He has had significant weight gain since the last novel and is trying to lose weight in this novel. Lieutenant Colonel Mbali Kaleni: Griessel and Cupido's former boss in the Serious & Violent Crimes Unit. She is also known as “The Flower.” She helps the detectives’ decision to pursue the Milo April incident off-the-book. Sandra Steenberg: A Stellenbosch real-estate agent who becomes involved in a secret land deal with entrepreneur Jasper Boonstra. Jasper Boonstra: A local, incredibly wealthy and infamous businessman who partakes in underhanded and illegal market practices which have gained him ridicule but as yet no legal repercussions. His numerous sexual harassment scandals and rumored criminal activities would result in the company Schneider-Konig and others from leaving Stellenbosch, thus plunging the economy into disarray. Lettie Boonstra: Jasper Boonstra's wife, who is seeking a divorce for his continued unfaithfulness. She has known him since college and is disappointed by his decline, greed, and ego. Mareli Volster: A lawyer representing a wealthy American client, Demeter, who sought to, and ultimately purchased the Donkerdrif property. Warrant Officer Milo April: Killed in a crash while investigating, off-the-record, the disappearance of guns seized by the SAPS in raids. Calvyn (Callie) Wilhelm de Bruin: The missing university student in Stellenbosch. He's known to be reclusive and an excellent programmer. He started fencing stolen goods which earned him illegal money he would use to buy his mother a house.
Annemarie de Bruin: Callie's mother and a single mother. She reported Callie's disappearance to the Stellenbosch police and has a close relationship with her son. Roland Parker: Callie's business partner. Known as “Rolster” by his mother and “The Rolster” to others. He stole goods from wealthy homes he installed security systems in. He lives with his mother in Cloetsville, north of Stellenbosch. Lieutenant Colonel Phila Zamisa: Lieutenant Colonel of the Borland Task force that resolves the cash-in-transit heist at the beginning of the novel. Griessel saves his life. Was also a part of the council that decided Griessel and Cupido's fate after the events of the Last Hunt. Was involved in the extraction of Callie de Bruin. General Mandala Khaba: In the council that decided Griessel and Cupido's fate. He wanted to remove them from the police force based on the events in The Last Hunt. Colonel Buddy 'The Flash' Fick: Head of the SAPS Confiscated Firearms Store in Silverton, outside Tshwane. Known for his meticulous, controlling personality, overbearing strictness, and polished uniform. Responsible for the kidnap of Callie de Bruin. Lieutenant Colonel Waldemar 'Witkop' Jansen: Griessel and Cupido's boss in Stellenbosch. Known for being “old-school,” he brutally admonishes Griessel & Cupido when they did not have any leads in the Callie de Bruin case. Milo April: A police officer who sent mysterious messages to Cupido and Griessel alluding to a police corruption plot he had discovered within the confiscated firearms department of the SAPS. He was murdered before he could reveal what he knew. Chriselda Plaatjies: Milo April's fiancé who revealed what he had uncovered but was unable to tell before his death when she agreed to a secret meeting at Mbali Kaleni's house. Desiree Coetzee: IT project manager and Cupido's girlfriend he met in the last book. She has a son, Donovan whom Cupido is close with. Alexa Barnard: Griessel's girlfriend he met in Alcoholics Anonymous. They recovered together and currently live in Belleville, Western Cape. Griessel busies himself with painting her house as he awaits his assignment after the hearing. Fritz Griessel: Griessel's estranged son who is studying film. He is dubious at his father's motivation to become closer to him due to Griessel's alcoholism, resulting in distrust in his father's ability to maintain his sobriety.
Translations The Dark Flood was originally published in Afrikaans by NB-Uitgewers in 2020 and translated in English by K.L. Seegers in 2021 to be sold in the US and UK. The novel was also translated in German (titled Todstunde) by Aufbau Verlaine and in the Netherlands (titled Donkerdrif) by A.W. Bruna.
The English edition includes a glossary of Afrikaans words in the back due to the many Afrikaans words that were used throughout the novel. Meyers states that he has a translator who does the main translations but he tweaks her work to best convey his meaning. This includes usage of the Afrikaans words to best convey the setting and culture
Style Structure The novel is broken into two main perspectives, with the omniscient narrator divulging events with Sandra Steenberg and the detective duo Griessel and Cupido. Occasionally in the middle and end of the novel, Cupido and Griessel have separate narrations to describe their experiences investigating the Callie de Bruin and Jasper Boonstra cases separately. The two main perspectives changed simultaneously throughout the story, and eventually, Steenberg and the detective duo's stories meet. This is done frequently to either develop suspence, characters, or reveal an unreliable narrator.
Genre
A wide selection of criminal activities, such as theft, cybercrime, and corruption of the state & police are included in The Dark Flood.
The Dark Flood has been classified as a thriller, due to the fast-paced action, and a police procedural due to the intimate focus on police practices during the investigations and the involvement of police tensions into the story. Meyer's portrayal of police officers and their investigation techniques in The Dark Flood and his other novels is described as “outstanding,” characteristic of that genre.
Themes
State capture and government corruption State capture is a specific government corruption in which economic influence is wielded by corporations, businesses, or wealthy individuals in order to secure "narrow and selfish" goals through the method of influencing State policies. This issue is thoroughly highlighted in The Dark Flood and is described as "South Africa's systemic political corruption." Systemic corruption occurs when corruption is present on the small scale (petty bribes among low-level officials) and the large scale (large misuse of public funds). The South African democratic state ended some forms of corruption during apartheid and propagated others.