Currently reading: MIXED BLOOD by Roger Smith

I've been doing a lot of reading the first three months of this year, but I am a little behind in my reviewing. And my reading choices have been a little constrained too - along with reading new New Zealand books and upcoming or recently released books for some newspaper columns and in preparation for feature interviews with the likes of Robert Crais, Peter Corris, Michael Connelly, and Henning Mankell, I am also participating in Dorte Jakobsen's excellent 2011 Global Reading Challenge.

For one of my 'Africa' crime novels for the expert level of the challenge, I have now started reading a book from a 'new-to-me' author, Roger Smith. I've heard some very good things about Smith's writing, so when I saw a new copy of MIXED BLOOD on a discount table at Whitcoulls a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't resist grabbing it.

Here's the short blurb for MIXED BLOOD: "An American, hiding out in Cape Town, South Africa, after being blackmailed into a bank heist back home, is building a new life for his pregnant wife and young son, when an incident of random violence sets him on a collision course with street gangs and a rogue cop who loves killing almost as much as he loves Jesus Christ."

Smith was born in Johannesburg, and now lives in Cape Town. Before becoming a crime writer, he was a screenwriter, producer and director. MIXED BLOOD was his debut novel, and was published in the US and Germany in 2009. It won the Deutschen Krimi Preis 2010 in Germany and has been nominated for a Spinetingler Best Novel award. His second book is WAKE UP DEAD. According to Smith's website, GreeneStreet Films (NYC) is developing the movie version of MIXED BLOOD – scheduled to start shooting in Cape Town in 2011 – starring Samuel L. Jackson, with Phillip Noyce directing.

Have you read MIXED BLOOD or WAKE UP DEAD? Do you like South African-set crime fiction? Are you participating in the 2011 Global Reading Challenge? If so, what African novels have you chosen? Thoughts welcome.