Mixed Blood by Roger Smith

I was so taken with Wake up Dead that I got his first novel, Mixed Blood, from the library right away.

Hard to tell just where Benny Mongrel came from. He was a child of the flats, the worst slum near Cape Town. Orphaned at 10, murderer shortly thereafter, burned alive and tortured as a teenager, two time resident of the worst prison in South Africa and determined never to go back, despite his high ranking inside. Once released, he takes a security job as a night guard over a house under construction. The company gives him a broken down guard dog that Benny becomes emotionally attached to.

The house is next door to house rented by Jack Burns, his pregnant wife, and son Matt. Jack is a Gulf War vet who opened a security business in SoCal. He has a rep as being lucky in all things, including gambling. But when that luck runs out, he is pressured into joining a small crew to rob a Milwaukee bank, a job that goes horribly wrong, so Jack and his family runs to Cape Town.

Two gang bangers, high on tic, pick a house at random to rob . . . the house of Jack Burns. Bad decision. Jack disarms and shoots one and slits the throat of the other just as his wife starts contractions. Now he has to dispose of the bodies. Benny sees what's happened.

A corrupt detective, as fat as Jabba the Hut, starts to follow hunches and clues that finally leads him to that the guy in the rental who is wanted in the multimillion dollar robbery in Milwaukee. Gatsby, the cop, is also being investigated by Disaster Zondi, a federal investigator who has Gatsby in his crosshairs, but is a few steps behind the fat man. Gatsby figures that night watchman in the house next door to Burns must know something and when he confronts Benny, the dog attacks only to be shot. Benny is crushed and vows to kill this pig who killed his dog. But, Gatsby sees the millions that Burns must have, kidnaps Burns' son and sets in motion multiple murders, tortures, maiming, and torching as Burns, now partnered with Benny, and Zondi close in on Gatsby.

Like Wake up Dead, this story begins with a rash action. In this case, Jack's military training takes over and he handily defeats a couple drugged out punks. The problem is that his son is scarred by the attack. The story basically takes place over the following week. Jack's wife wants out to take her children back to the States. Benny goes from what seem like a passive soul in the lowest of the low jobs whose reckless violent past returns when the only important thing in his life is taken from him in an instant. Nothing will stand in his way to get back at Gatsby who is carving out his own path of blood and charred bodies trying to get out one step ahead of Zondi.

While the story is told with the Burns family as the focus, I actually found Benny to be the more interesting character. As the story unfolds, Benny is always there, watching from the sidelines and when he is called into the game, an entirely different character emerges. Gatsby is a pig of the first order who deserves his fate and Zondi is a relentless investigator who starts off after Gatsby, but ends up looking into Burns and his family.

As I said for Wake up Dead, the books of Smith are relentlessly violent with people meeting their mother in all kinds of disgusting mayhem. The stages for the final confrontation are set halfway through the book and Smith skillfully keeps you glued to the page as things are played out. If blood and maiming is not your cup of tea, don't pick this up. But for lovers of violent, no-holds-barred crime fiction, Smith is hard to beat.

East Coast Don