Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Random Violence by Jassy Mackenzie

Jassy Mackenzie lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, and was inspired to document her experience of being carjacked at gunpoint in her driveway.

Random Violence (Soho Crime, 2010) is the first book of five about private investigator Jade DeJong. Set in Johannesburg, South Africa, Mackenzie describes a booming town in the years after the end of apartheid stretched to the breaking point in every conceivable way. Rampant growth has outrun the infrastructure needed to support the swelling population and crime runs amok unchecked.

Those who can afford it live in gated communities and hire private security firms to patrol the grounds because the government law enforcement is inadequate. Carjacking is common, and just stepping out of a vehicle long enough to open security gates can be lethal, as Annette Botha discovers one night. She is shot in her driveway while her four Alstatians on the other side of the gate go berserk trying to reach her.

Jade Dejong returns to Johannesburg after 10 years away. She left after the death of her police commissioner father, and she’s returned because one of the men convicted of his murder is being released from prison. She intends to kill him to avenge her father and enlists the assistance of a career criminal to do so while her father’s former deputy, now promoted to superintendent, requests her help in solving Botha’s murder.

Both story lines reflect an investigator and a country struggling to decide who they are. DeJong is a strong lead with grit and courage. Her willingness to violate the law reminds me of Spenser and other 20^th century PIs who don’t mind breaking the rules when they do not serve justice. The violence of the sprawling city, hair-raising at times, appears to reflect the contemporary reality. (Multiple websites for tourists advise prospective visitors that the crime rate is very high and caution is needed at all times.) Impressive sense of time and place. An intense, absorbing read for fans of formidable female protagonists and of international crime fiction.

Starred reviews from Library Journal and Publishers Weekly.

 

·         Publisher: ‎ Soho Crime; 1st edition (April 1, 2010)

·         Language: ‎ English

·         Hardcover: ‎ 336 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎ 1569476292

·         ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1569476291

 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2023 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night. 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Present Darkness by Malla Nunn

 

Malla Nunn is an Australian film maker and author of young adult books and adult crime fiction. She was born in Swaziland, now known as Eswatini. Her family emigrated to Australia to escape apartheid. Her four mysteries about Detective Sergeant Emanuel Cooper are set in the 1950s in South Africa, amid the cruelty and abuse of the race-based apartheid laws, which existed from 1948 into the 1990s. Her books have been shortlisted for the Edgar, the Barry, the Macavity, the Anthony, and the Ned Kelly awards.

The most recent one Present Darkness (Emily Bestler Books, 2014) finds Cooper in Johannestown a few days before Christmas. Everyone is wrapping up their assignments in anticipation of a long break. Instead all vacations are cancelled when a white schoolteacher and his wife are found murdered in their home and their traumatized daughter names two black students as the culprits. One of them is the son of Zulu Detective Constable Samuel Shabalala, Cooper’s closest friend and to whom Cooper is indebted for an earlier rescue. Once Shabalala’s son is under arrest, Lieutenant Walter Mason insists on closing the case with no real investigation. Cooper and Shabalala and Cooper’s friend Dr. Daniel Zweigman work around Mason and his corrupt cronies at significant danger to themselves to get to the truth of the killings.

A carefully considered and plotted police procedural. What elevates it from good to outstanding is the reconstruction of apartheid, an inhuman system of segregation in all areas of life based on skin color and race. The degree to which the state could legally and did interfere with the freedom of South African citizens is unimaginable. Readers from the United States will automatically compare apartheid to the laws of the Jim Crow South with good reason. The two were miserably similar, although I do not know of an instance in which the police in the U.S. South were authorized to enter homes at night to check on sleeping arrangements.

A very fine if depressing piece of historical crime fiction. This book leaves a few threads in Cooper’s life loose; hopefully another story is in development.

Starred review from Publishers Weekly.

 

·         Publisher: ‎ Emily Bestler Books; Original edition (June 3, 2014)

·         Language: ‎ English

·         Paperback: ‎ 352 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎ 1451616961

·         ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1451616965 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2022

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Icarus by Deon Meyer

I continued my armchair travels a couple of weeks ago by reading Icarus (Atlantic Monthly Press, 2015) by South African author Deon Meyer, who has been on my reading list for awhile. Ernst Richter was the inventor and CEO of the controversial South African firm Alibi, an organization that arranged, for a fee, a concrete cover-up for matrimonial cheaters. Hotel receipts and conference credentials could be produced that were indistinguishable from the originals, and telephone calls supposedly from managers requesting the presence of the marital double-dealer at the office could be made at times specified. Rock-solid anonymity of the firm’s clients was of course guaranteed. Richter and his company were media darlings so his disappearance was a shock to everyone who knew him. The discovery of his body three weeks later in a sandy grave struck a seismic blow to his company and his reputation.

Assigned to the case is alcoholic Detective Captain Benny Griessel of the Directorate of Priority Crime Investigations, Violent Crimes Group, in Capetown, South Africa, who is on the wagon but still struggling hard with sobriety. The Violent Crimes Group has a new commander and everyone is anxious to make a good impression while they take the Major’s measure, especially Griessel’s partner Cupido Vaughan who has been given the task as team leader of the investigation.

Alternating chapters with those describing the work of the police to discover Richter’s killer is a lengthy description of one family’s history in South African winemaking. It is a fascinating discussion, particularly because South Africa is not one of the countries I associate with wine making. However interesting the story is, its purpose is not immediately clear as it does not connect to the crime until quite late in the book but connect it does in a dramatic fashion.

This is the fifth book in Meyer’s series about Griessel and his colleagues. It received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and it was a finalist for the 2016 CWA International Dagger Award and the 2016 Nielsen Booksellers’ Choice Award. It was named a Best Book of the Year by the Boston Globe and Financial Times.

·         Hardcover: 352 pages

·         Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press; Translation edition (October 6, 2015)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 0802124003

·         ISBN-13: 978-0802124005

Aubrey Hamilton ©2019

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

The Challenges of Being an Author Based in South Africa by Misha Gerrick (Up Around The Corner Blog)

The Challenges of Being an Author Based in South Africa by Misha Gerrick (Up Around The Corner Blog)