Join Umuzi at Exclusive Books Morningside for the launch of Jassy Mackenzie’s thrilling adventure, Worst Case, the latest in the Jade de Jong series. The launch takes place on Thursday 25 August, at 6.00 PM for 6.30 PM.
Crime writer Jassy Mackenzie spoke to Sue Grant-Marshall about her latest novel, Worst Case, and the intriguing, crime-solving, heroine Jade de Jong, who is making her fourth appearance in this book.
“Jade has always been the name of my alter ego and De Jong is my partner’s surname,” Mackenzie said. “She is a very complex character. When I first thought her up, I didn’t realise half of how complex she was actually going to be.” Listen to the podcast:
The Book Lounge launch of Jassy Mackenzie‘s fourth novel, Worst Case, was a thrilling event which saw an exchange of sparkling dialogue between the author and fellow crime-writer, Mike Nicol.
Nicol began by asking Mackenzie when the main characters, Jade de Jong and David Patel, had first come to her.
In response, Mackenzie spoke about her first novel, Random Violence: “When I started writing Random Violence,” she said, “I wanted to find a niche that hadn’t been done before. Female leads in crime fiction are slightly more rare than males. What I found missing in the line up of female heroines was the renegade, the equal of Jack Reacher, in terms of toughness and independence, not necessarily adhering to the law. Most female leads tend to have set occupations, police officers or lawyers, with good nine to five jobs, even if these lead them into difficulties at times. I wanted a heroine who as likely to go against the law as to do right by the law.”
“With Jade’s father as a cop, wouldn’t that push her in one direction?” asked Nicol.
“I wanted to create a reason for her to turn her back on everything her father stood for,” Mackenzie replied. “Firstly, I got her father murdered in a horrible way. So of course, Jade had to avenge his death. I also introduced some history with a mother she never knew so that genetically she gets something in the mix she never could have anticipated.”
In Mackenzie’s view there are times when every woman wishes she could stand up and “bliksem” somebody. “I wanted to create a character that allowed that side of me, and that side of readers, to be expressed. Jade is a woman who will get her own way, whether through deviousness or physical battle in order to make something happen. In doing that I managed to express a lot of my own inner frustration at being obliged because you’re physically weaker and because society expects that you won’t smash somebody’s face that deserves it!”
The research into the killing distance of the gun Jade uses – a Glock 19 – in a discussion with a (friendly) ex-boyfriend with firearm expertise had the audience amused. No thanks to Vodacom, the call Mackenzie had made to “Stefano” to enquire whether one shot would reliably kill her fictional victim was dropped midway. When his phone rang again, he continued the conversation where they’d left off, saying, “You could definitely kill with one shot but you must make sure the person isn’t more than four or five metres away…” at which point the person who’d made the call said, “Hellooooo?” It wasn’t in fact Jassy that had called back.
The rest of the evening was spent hearing similarly engaging tales – including those of Mackenzie travels to the UK to learn about the workings of Scotland Yard. A question and answer session with the audience rounded off the evening and the author signed copies for eager fans.
James Kilgore, author of We Are All Zimbabweans Now, says that there has been an increase in detentions of immigrants in the United States since 9/11.
Kilgore is no stranger to prison life, having served six and a half years in jail for his activities as a member of the left-wing militant group, the Symbionese Liberation Army. Kilgore had been living as a fugitive in South Africa since 1978 and was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list for years before he was arrested and extradited to the US in 2002. His novel, We Are All Zimbabweans Now, was completed while in prison.
Kilgore says heightened security since 9/11 has led to the incarceration of Latinos living without legal documentation, creating a boom in business for private prisons. He compares today’s staggering deportation statistics to the “Repatriation” campaign of the 1930s and Operation Wetback of 1954, “both of which resulted in the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Latinos”:
Last week Representative Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) joined a demonstration in Washington D.C. to protest the refusal of President Obama to use his executive powers to halt the deportations of the undocumented. Gutierrez’ arrest came only two days after Obama had addressed a conference of the National Council of La Raza. Conveniently forgetting the history of the civil right struggles that made his Presidency a possibility, Obama reminded those attending that he was bound to “uphold the laws on the books.”
With over 392,000 deportations in 2010, more than in any of the Bush years, many activists fear we are in the midst of a repeat of notorious episodes of the past such as the “Repatriation” campaign of the 1930s and the infamous Operation Wetback of 1954, both of which resulted in the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Latinos.
Umuzi and The Book Lounge invite you to the launch of Worst Case, the new Jade de Jong thriller by Jassy Mackenzie. The event takes place on the 11th of August at 5.30 for 6 PM.
This August, Umuzi will be releasing the latest title in Jassy Mackenzie‘s Jade de Jong series, Worst Case. In Worst Case, P.I. Jade de Jong has to partner up with an estranged lover in order to solve a murder and prevent an act of environmental sabotage. Read an excerpt from the book:
Themba Msamaya didn’t suspect a thing on the morning he opened his door to death.
He was halfway through his first cup of tea when the knock came. Over the past few months, he’d developed something of a ritual. He’d get up early, boil the kettle and dunk a bag of cheap, Shoprite own-brand tea into a chipped South African Airways mug. He’d learned to do without milk, but a teaspoon of sugar was an essential he couldn’t forego. Black tea didn’t have to be so strong – it tasted better weak, in fact – and he had discovered one teabag could easily stretch to two mugs.
He would drink the steaming, reddish brew while sitting at the desk in his tiny Yeovillebedsit, yesterday’s papers open at the Classifieds, his elderly laptop ready to browse the Jobsearch websites.
In August, Umuzi will be releasing Worst Case, the latest title in Jassy Mackenzie‘s Jade de Jong series:
P.I. Jade de Jong’s holiday becomes a nightmare when a dive instructor at the scuba resort is found brutally stabbed to death. The only clue is a cryptic postcard in her room.
Jade and her estranged lover David Patel put aside their differences and start the hunt, uncovering a massive organised crime operation and a chain of events leading from a horror crash in North Africa to the St Lucia estuary. Jade soon finds herself in a deadly race to prevent an act of environmental sabotage that could destroy this world heritage site. Death is knocking on the door, and love and cunning is all she has left to fight it?
About the author
Jassy Mackenzie was born in what was then Rhodesia and moved to South Africa when she was eight years old. She is a member of a writerly family; her mother Ann Mackenzie was a well-known short-story writer in her day, and her sister Vicky Jones, who lives in New Zealand, is a prize-winning author of children’s books. Today, Jassy is the editor of HJ, a hair and beauty trade magazine. She has had numerous non-fiction articles on a wide variety of subjects published locally and internationally over the past eleven years. Her first novel, Random Violence, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize: Africa Region, and has been published in the US and in Germany. Her second, My Brother’s Keeper, has been named a finalist in the Best Paperback Original category of the International Thriller Awards. She lives in Johannesburg with her partner, two horses and two cats.
Mike Nicol, author of Black Heart, meets Sue-Grant Marshall on Friday the 13th – but mercifully shows his gentler side:
He’s a gentle man with a wry sense of humour who could easily earn his living as a stand-up comic. He ably demonstrated this hidden talent at the recent Franschhoek Literary Festival, where he had audiences doubled up with laughter. So he’s not the sort you’d imagine would knock off characters with impunity, yet a lot of people die in his books.
“Someone has just accosted me in the street and accused me of plumbing the depths of depravity in Black Heart,” he volunteers with the faintest hint of injury.
Today we bring you the infamous “Speedo scene” from Mike Nicol‘s Black Heart, courtesy Shorty’s Shebeen. In the excerpt, taken from Chapter 64, Sheemina teases Mace with the thought of her in a silky black number and he in a Speedo.
Sheemina watched the balaclavaed man on the screen of her small monitor.
What was his case, standing there like a statue?
‘Are you going to remain there all night, Mr Bishop? I told you, I’m in the bedroom. You know where it is.’
Mace unmoved.
‘I have a present for you, Mace. Want to know what it is?’
She watched him. He was listening. Who would have thought that the man of action would be so inactive.
‘It’s an exchange really. An exchange for my nightie, the negligee you took last time you were here. Remember, the black silky one.’
Ah, that got a twitch of his shoulders.
Join Umuzi at Exclusive Books Morningside for the launch of Jassy Mackenzie’s thrilling adventure, Worst Case, the latest in the Jade de Jong series. The launch takes place on Thursday 25 August, at 6.00 PM for 6.30 PM. 
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