Power play

by Mike Nicol

Le Cap est une ville de gangsters, de violence et de corruption des élites politiques qui n'a, dans l'histoire du polar, rien à envier au Chicago des années 1930 ou au Los Angeles des romans d'Ellroy.


Deux gangs s'y livrent une guerre impitoyable pour s'approprier le marché de la drogue. La fille de Titus Anders, le vénérable chef des Pretty Boyz, qui essaie de s'acheter une respectabilité tout en blanchissant de l'argent à tout va, a été enlevée par la féroce Tamora, chef des Mongols, le nouveau gang dominant. L'escalade des représailles est sanglante et brutale, les membres des deux clans tombent comme des mouches. Dans le même temps, Krista, qui dirige une agence de sécurité spéciale filles, est contrainte par les services secrets d'accepter un contrat : il s'agit de protéger des Chinois venus investir dans les mines. En réalité, ils convoitent le commerce incroyablement lucratif des ormeaux. Quand il apparaît que les gangs sont manipulés au plus haut niveau de l'État, où se disputent les vrais enjeux financiers, le lecteur soupçonne que la fiction n'est pas forcément très loin de la réalité.


Né en 1951, Mike Nicol vit au Cap. Journaliste, éditeur, auteur anglophone de romans non policiers pour commencer, il se consacre désormais au polar hard-boiled et engagé politiquement. Il est aussi l'auteur d'une biographie autorisée de Nelson Mandela.


" Ce n'est pas juste de la superbe littérature de genre, c'est de la superbe littérature, point barre. " John Connolly


Traduit de l'anglais (Afrique du Sud) par Jean Esch

Genres: Thriller

287 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2015

About the author

Born in Cape Town, Mike Nicol was educated there and in Johannesburg, where he began his working life as a journalist. During the 1980s he moved back to Cape Town and worked on the magazine Leadership for a number of years. Towards the end of that decade he published his first novel, The Powers That Be, resigned from the magazine and began what he calls "the scary life of a freelance journalist and writer."

Reviews

[Tess · Rating 5 out of 5]

A breathless page-turner from Gangland in Cape Town, filled with strong female characters who stay with you long after the last page. Mike Nicol is a master of his craft. One of the best crime thrillers I have read.

[Ahmad · Rating 1 out of 5]

dude this is so bad.

I think its meant to be like a crime thriller who dunnit o but nah .
I hardly got excited or jubilant. Like no neurons or electrical pathways in my body were stimulated.
So at the beginning, Gang boss Titus Anders is having lunch with his family grieving the loss of his son, Boetie. Joining him is his immaculate princess (the book's words), Lavina, Quint and Luc. So afterwards Quint dies, lavina is taken hostage and severely mutilated and Luc gets hurt to. All the while Titus wanders with this 'Untouchable' label. cmon

It's not even like thrilling to uncover the murderer. It's just SPOLIERS

Tamara (insert last name). She did some deals for Titus and is now attempting a power play (hey that's the name of the book). She hires this incompetent, brazen Russian tank to deliver her shootings but he literally misses all his targets. He dumps an entire mag of smg to a family (titus') like 10 metres away. He is accompanied by Black Aron the driver, tamora's lapdog. These two goofsters helped lighten the tone.

So boetie is removed and the audience hasn't had a chance to hear his story and deal so yeah see ya. So later on, his son Quint is found dead at sea. Titus, still being a complacent ass decides to do nothing whilst Luc constantly sprays that tamora is behind this and that revenge is necessary. Oh yeah, he hires these two women, Krista and Tami who run a security business and do bodyguarding. Titus hires them to protect his precious Lavina but spoiler that doesn't work. Enter hitman ex machina, Mkhulu Gumade or something. Some furtive and sneaky underover agent who I don't who he works for. prob tamora. Anyway the Krista wants revenge on the hitman because he killed Tami, her best friend. So she stalks him and prepares her kill but the hitman discovers she's trailing him and tells him to back off. So does Mart Velaze an agent working for the Voice (yeah ik amazing name). She doesn't, because revenge is engrained in her eye holes and afterwards confronts Mkhulu where she sustains damage

Ok so another untouchable, Rings, some politician bloke is playing Titus, tamora is playing titus and the chinese are playing titus. Honestly, he's just a big walking mass of testosterone. No mastermind tactics or gang warfare even. We hear that there's strife between the Pretty Boyz (which i think titus or the untouchables own) and the Mongols. There's some diary excerpts from a mongols member but that's not enough.

Titus ignores comments by Luc about the killers and apparently hires one guard to protect the front of their house (who the russian is able to get past by concealing a gun in a bouquet of flowers), which lies next to the beach. This is the site of a shooting by the russian buffoon because Titus held a funeral and wants to weep in strenuous and tense circumstances. But at least he hired Krista and Tamora, that was decent. But after boetie's death at the beginning he takes no precautions to protect his family. He doesn't even know wHO'S DOING IT for goodness sake, his son Luc tips him off. His prestige, status and ganglord title is a mere delusion and fallacy. Ok sure he gets free meals but also Luc is in contact with tamora and recognises black aron and.. .... ah sack it
its horrible dont read

[Wayne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finishing a good book often involves a grieving process. We take time to say goodbye to characters that we have kept company with, a storyline that has frequently distracted us away from the pressures, even responsibilities, of our daily routines. A great book is seldom accompanied by a sense of accomplishment – more frequently loss. It’s over; what now? How are we going to live without these characters, these events that we have immersed ourselves in? When that book is a trilogy then the whole process is magnified.

This was my struggle when I finished The Revenge Trilogy by Mike Nicol. How could I imagine my literary life without Mace and Pylon? I remember asking the author this question when I had a chance. His answer was vague but not dismissive, he left me with a slight tinge of hope.

That hope was Power Play. In no way a follow on from the trilogy but not entirely unrelated. The central character is Krista, Mace’s daughter who has taken over her father’s business. He is now retired, languishing in the Cayman Islands, and she is left to make a name for herself.

Krista and her partner Tami specialize in providing close protection services exclusively to women. This rule is broken as the Secret Service manipulate them into taking on a Chinese delegation.

Across the peninsula a turf war has broken out between rival gangs over the sought-after Abalone poaching trade. Poaching, and Chinese involvement, is not a new narrative but how is the Secret Service involved?

As the body count mounts, the story plays out, but no one is safe.

Power Play is the tame title to the Afrikaans translation, ‘Woes’. The violence and torture are not going to be everyone’s cup of tea but they reflect the reality of the gang related brutality that rocks the Cape Flats.

Hectic (not a bad translation of ‘Woes’) was the word that sat with me as I finished Power Play feeling exhausted and emotionally spent. Another exceptional offering by one of South Africa’s premier Crime Writers.

[Sergio GRANDE · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first met Mike Nicol as a journalist. His book "A Good Looking Corpse" had a profound impact on me in the early 90s, as South Africa was suffering the last violent convulsions of Apartheid, heading for the birth of a new country or for bloodshed -we didn't know which one then- and I was at my most committed as a cultural activist who also had to keep his job to feed two children and a wife while working from "inside the system".

I didn't know until very recently that Mr. Nicol had become a full-time novelist; in my mind he was still a journalist. This is no reflection on his profile as a successful writer but rather of my ignorance of the literary world.

I do however, have to admit that I preferred Mr Nicol's work as a journalist, when the characters in his writing were real people. They were believable.

One last thing, Mr. Nicol attempts to speak in the local voices but very halfheartedly, thus confusing the foreign reader who's unfamiliar with the South African lingo while appearing fake to the Seffrican reader. Like a Hollywood actor mimicking the Seffrican ekcent.

I choon you, his ous don't sound lekker. Makes me mal, strues bob.

[Steven Durnez · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ik kan niet anders dan het boek met 1 ster belonen. Dat ligt niet alleen aan het verhaal zelf, dat is best oké. Alleen duurt het even voor je in het verhaal zit. Na de eerste hoofdstukken lukt dit beter.

Maar het ergste is de erbarmelijke Nederlandstalige vertaling ! Ik kan de fouten niet op drie handen tellen. Nog nooit meegemaakt dit. Ik zou de uitgever toch aanraden het boek eens opnieuw te lezen. Bepaalde keren overwogen om het met die reden opzij te leggen, maar dan toch doorgebeten. Zonde.

[Cédric · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure if it was the translation or just the writing style but didn't really enjoy this book to the fullest.

[Stephane Savoy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bon thriller … lu d'un bout à l'autre sans déposer le livre :)

[Annelein Van · Rating 3 out of 5]

Opzich een leuk boek maar ik vond m best ingewikkeld. De verhaallijn was wel heel leuk maar doordat het moeilijk geschreven was heb ik er wel echt lang over gedaan.

[Kirsten Weeks · Rating 2 out of 5]

I think if you like crime, it would be an enjoyable book. I don't dislike crime, but this just became more violent and horrific with each chapter, culminating in the ending, which I won't betray.