Random Violence

Travel Guide

It’s one thing learning about the level and nature of crime in a city from the television of films but to read about a car jacking and shooting in a literary thriller is more of a unique and insightful premise.

What’s interesting here is that the murder and investigation all take place in post-apartheid Johannesburg. Such a unique background for a crime thriller, the level of crime protection that many people feel is important are evoked so chillingly –

Stopping at night was risky. Getting out of the car was even more dangerous

The author also incorporates the social and political aspects of the country post-apartheid as we see with the gated communities, David’s boss and many other things that Jade sees and realises on her return to her country which has changed in her absence. Thinking it good to be back in the ‘crazy boomtown energy’ of Johannesburg, she soon sees how the crime and the danger is very much there.

Political an organised crime is rampant in the city in the book and provides a chilling backdrop when you realise it’s based on a very real situation.

The level of security that residents have on their homes and in their cars is sad to see but to investigate a crime within such a dangerous world is an unsettling and chilling premise for a novel.