Discordant Vices

'Discordant Vices' is a violent and disburbing crime story set in Australia that deals with rape, murder, torture, corruption and the Australian underworld. Fred Jenkins is a psychopath who believes he has been having sex with his mother since the age of twelve. She is now in hospital dying of cancer. His feelings of guilt and self-loathing combined with his inability to attract a girlfriend set him on a quest to exact revenge on the women he believes have slighted him. A combination of bad luck, oversights and having only circumstantial evidence on the part of the police and the intelligence and fastidiousness of Jenkins means that he escapes conviction and is, as he himself believes, invincible. The multi-stranded and complex plot is smoothly crafted with several unexpected twists. Knowledgeable descriptions of crime scenes and thorough characterisation create a fearful ambience that will leave the reader uneasy yet intrigued. The main players are developed through the language of their conversations with each other and, in the case of Jenkins, through his thoughts and conversations with his dog. The graphic accounts of torture and violence make this a harrowing novel that will certainly appeal to strong-stomached fans of violent crime stories.