Random Violence

by Jassy Mackenzie

Book Overview

As P.I. Jade de Jong probes into the murder of a prosperous Johannesburg white and other recent car-jacking cases, a pattern begins to emerge, a pattern that goes back to her own father's murder and involves a vast and intricate series of crimes for profit.

In Johannesburg prosperous whites live in gated communities; when they exit their cars to open the gates, car-jackings are common. But seldom is the victim killed, much less shot twice,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1616952180
• ISBN13: 9781616952181
• Release Date: March 2013
• Publisher: Soho Crime
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.0" x 7.4"

Customer Reviews

compelling well written

if you like intelligent compelling detective fiction you will love this. I am an addict for this genre and this book is a treat.

Random Violence

Jade deJong , the headstrong protagonist of this terrific new novel, is a p.i. who has left her native South Africa, but after a ten-year absence has returned after, most recently, doing surveillance work in England. Her father, before his death, had been police commissioner in Johannesburg, described as a city filled with crime and brutality. The tale opens with the brutal murder of a young woman in what initially appears to have been an attempted carjacking, the first but hardly the last violent act in this novel. Jade, thirty-four years old, has long-standing relationships with two men, who couldn't be less alike: David, a cop who trained under her father's mentorship and is now a Superintendent in the Johannesburg Central police headquarters, with whom she has a chaste friendship which she would like to see evolve into something more intimate; and Robbie, a small-time gangster whose own attempts at intimacy she rejects, but who serves a purpose. She has timed her return home with the expected release from prison of a convicted murderer who she blames for her father's death. Ultimately, her sense of justice, and her determination to see it done, provides her motivation despite some narrow escapes and the continuing jeopardy in which she finds herself. The author, who was raised in South Africa, has written a debut novel which brings the country to gritty life, a fast-paced and gripping tale with memorable characters. Readers, including this one, can look forward to her follow-up entry in the series, due out in 2011. Recommended.

Violence is endemic

Jassy Mackenzie's RANDOM VIOLENCE, the first in the Jade de Jong series, opens with the murder of a woman in an apparent car hijacking outside the gates of her fortified home in a suburb of Johannesburg. In the next section, Jade is being driven from the airport by David Patel, a superintendent in the police department and the protege of Jade's father, a police commissioner who was killed ten years before. Since her father's death, Jade has been living in Great Britain. out of touch with people and events in South Africa. David has hired a car for Jade and has asked her to help him with the investigation into Annette Botha's murder. Jade had been a private investigator, a career suggested by her father when she thought of joining the police force. As soon as David drops her off at her new accomodations, she leaves to meet another old friend, a much less respectable one. Robbie is a gun dealer and Jade wants, and needs, a gun. Against the agreement she thought she had with Robbie, he hands her the same gun she had used ten years before when she killed a man. Jade has killed and she is willing to kill again, always to remove from society those who have no compunctions about the harm they do to other people. The South Africa Jade returns to, especially in the Johannesburg area, is one that has become integrated but one where those who can afford it live in gated communities with heavily armed guards or behind walls topped with razor wire. As Jade looks into the murder of Annette Botha she learns that there is a building boom, expensive gated communities being built on the large lots owned by people who have died violently. Identities are stolen and in the background is the man known as Whiteboy, a man who kills in the most brutal ways. There are explicit descriptions of Whiteboy's brutality. I did a lot of scanning but I am glad that I finished the book. Jade and Robbie are either amoral or immoral in their willingness to be paid vigilantes. David Patel is a decent man, caught in the web of a corrupt police department, but managing to keep his honor. The characters are interesting enough that I will read the next in the series when it makes it to the United States.

Great new detective story from South Africa

Jade de Jong is a welcome addition to the P.I. genre. She's hard-boiled, exercising a moral flexibility when the situation demands it but not so hard-boiled that she is without human feelings. Readers who like a strong sense of location in their crime fiction (and I'm one) won't be disappointed with the setting or the way Mackenzie weaves in post-apartheid social and cultural adjustments as well as South Africa's extraordinarily violent crime problem. Random Violence has an excellent plot with two story lines that are both compelling and a pacing that made me keep reading. My only disappointment is that the next book in the series isn't immediately available.