Monday, 10 February 2025

The arsenal in crime fiction

 Okay, so I don't ave a gun fetish, or a weapon fetish, but there is one little thing I like in crime fiction: it's how some weapons reveal something about characters, whether they are good guys or badguys. I love signature weapons in crime fiction. South African crime writer to Deon Meyer is keen on this trope, as I blogged here. He does it again with Leo, when police officers Vaughn Cupido and Bennie Griessel do the inventory of the arsenal of a murder victim, a mercenary with a shady past. I love Cupido's connoisseur appreciation: "Number two, the cute but deadly little Heckler & Koch 416. (...) This time the elegant but deadly G36, in mint condition.(...)the very sexy bad girl of assault rifles, the AR-15. (...) Glock 17. Impeccable taste." It's a least a page of exposition, but Meyer reveals a lot about the victim and Cupido and makes it engaging. I found it really neat storytelling. So yeah, read the book.