Customer Reviews

Random Violence: A Jade de Jong Investigation (Jade de Jong Investigations)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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

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.

Jade de Jong, a private investigator, left Johannesburg after her father was killed and returns when the man who likely ordered the murder is about to be released from prison. While waiting for her revenge, she hooks up again with her old friend David, now a police detective like her father. She agrees to help him with the investigation of what looks like an attempted carjacking gone wrong, leaving a woman dead. But there's nothing random about Annette's death. A chilling, highly intelligent psychopath combines his private passion with his business interests in real-estate development and he has a close eye on Jade and the investigation.

Mackenzie's characters have flaws, make mistakes, and struggle to find their way, which makes them come alive, feel real. Even violent Johannesburg feels like a character in the story, a part of the mystery. The social background of the city ten years after apartheid ended, adds to the appeal of the story and to the mystery.

So says a South African game ranger, as he gazes upon the tortured body of a dead detective. One of many victims in this novel.

The setting is fascinating: boomtown Johannesburg after Apartheid. Everyone who can afford it lives barricaded behind fences, with security guards either prowling the neighborhood or watching the gates. The more money people have, the more elaborate their security systems.

And with good reason. Car hijackings and every kind of robbery are rampant. Murder over a car or a wallet is commonplace.

Into this atmosphere of random violence comes Jade de Jong, daughter of a police commissioner who was murdered ten years previously.

Despite her slender frame, Jade is as formidable as any tough-guy avenging superhero of popular film or fiction. She shoots to kill and is a vicious fighter in a pinch. She's also smart - a highly competent private investigator. At the same time, she has a heart - and it's going to cause her trouble in this book.

Jade is helping the police look into a murder. Specifically, she's helping the very attractive head of the investigation unit at Johannesburg Central.

I won't go into the plot. Simply stated, you can anticipate plenty of murder, betrayal, corruption, gunplay, suspense and wild driving. The bad guy is totally creepy, and he has slimy helpers.

I wasn't very comfortable with the violent scenes, but I got through them. The book is well written and cleverly plotted, and I enjoyed it. I recommend it, especially to readers who like their thrillers in unusual locales. I'll certainly be getting the next mystery in the series.

Mackenzie thrills again with the next in the Jade De Jong series. Jade, a private detective has recently returned from self-exile in England after needing time to get her head together following her last caper.
She immediately falls back in not only with the criminal underworld informants she had cultivated, but also into a semi-partnership with police detective David Patel. Hoping to stay close to Patel in order to foster a romantic relationship, they find themselves at loggerheads, especially when he admits that he has married and had a child since her absence. The fact that his wife and he are separated only seems to open more wounds for the couple.
Her arrival back in Johannesburg is also timed for the release of a hardened criminal that Jade believes was involved in the death of her father--a police commander whose death was set up to look like a simple auto accident--a decade previously. Along with helping Patel solve a possible home invasion style murder that leads to a much more complicated case with multiple victims and a vicious gang of murderers, Jade has her hands full keeping Patel's new commander off his back as well as keeping from him the knowledge that she has already shot and killed a notorious thug with a gun she was not supposed to have been carrying.
All of this mayhem helps complicate a simple plot. One that is a simple P.I. out does the police at their own game, figures out the bad guy first, girl gets guy in a happy ending. At least the murders and car chases keep us entertained enough to stay interested.
Not quite a page turner, but remarkable nevertheless as the reader is held spell bound by the author's interpretation of South Africa, the rhythms of her cities, and their cry for help.

Jassy Mackenzie brings us a world of violence in South Africa, but does so in a way that you cannot tear your eyes away from the pages, even for the most graphic and disturbing scenes. Ms. Mackenzie allows readers a glimpse into the customs and ways of South Africa that for a reader from the U.S. such as myself will probably never experience first hand. Her writing is beautiful, as are the characters she has created for this Jade De Jong series. The characters are realistic, with their burdens, desires, and every movement bringing the pages to life. I cannot wait to check out the 2nd in the series that has recently been released.

Couldn't finish it. Got half way through and finally gave up. DIsappointed because it had moments that said it could turn around and take off. But, it didn't. I also had some difficulty understanding what the author was trying to say about South Africa's (flawed?) criminal justice system and how it influences the police in the solving of crimes.

In brief, I couldn't get into the story. I couldn't find a way to pull together the story's threads so as to want to finish it. A good part of it was the moral instability of Jade the main character whom some reviewers applauded for her flexibility. I saw this, however, as a product of Jade's not being connected to a value system that would determine her approach to dealing with right and wrong. For me, she was expedient not flexible. She became someone I could not identify with or want to know more about. Moreover, her behavior defined her as a person who resisted adopting a set of values about right and wrong even though she had plenty of reason to do so. Her father had been an heroic Police Commissioner, and David, a close and important friend and skilled investigator was a Superintendent of Police. Yet Jade continually compromised the values of these folks by having equally close personal relationships with criminals even to the point of engaging in criminal behavior.

Does the book end with Jade resolving this apparent conflict between good and evil? Does one win out over the other? I don't know and unfortunately, I couldn't get invested enough in the story to really care.

I really enjoyed this book. It had just the right mix of emotion, suspense, plot and politics. I hope that the author continues to develop these characters and the culture they live in, which is fascinating given the world events today. She's off to a good start.