When Movie Mayhem Gripped the City of Gold

In 1913, a secretive American millionaire, who lived on the top floor of the famous Carlton Hotel, had a crazy idea: to make movies in Johannesburg. And not just any movies but the biggest in the world, huge spectacles with elaborate sets, thousands of extras and epic story lines.

Mother. Nurse. Gold-digger. Cause célèbre. When Daisy de Melker stood trial in 1932, accused of poisoning her son and two husbands, the public couldn’t get enough of her. Crowds gathered outside court baying for blood, and she waved to them like a celebrity.

A wonderfully quirky tale about the people in New York City whose mission is to find treasure … in what other people throw away.

More than thirty murders, nine fugitives, and one man obsessed by the search for justice. In this thrilling and fascinating true account of Frank Bender and his work, The Girl with the Crooked Nose draws readers into the cases that he has solved, the intricacies of his art, the colourful characters he encounters, and the personal cost of his strange obsession.

A dirty, grimy, graffiti-stained tenement popular with a group of local drug dealers is where the author found a cheap apartment when he first moved to New York City. Then things went terribly wrong.

Reminiscent of Water for Elephants and The Life of Pi, The Animal Lover takes you on a journey through past and present you won’t quickly forget. 

A story of travel and self-discovery through Africa, Apartheid in my Rucksack unfolds just as apartheid was ending.