A story of Mandela’s top cop, steeped in apartheid-era sabotage across local and global criminal investigations spanning decades. Add in nefarious individuals, from an informant once close to Colombia’s Pablo Escobar, to several suspected Cape Town crime kingpins, the stakes only get higher.

This is the scandal that has lacerated the South African Police Service, and implicated some of the country’s top cops and politicians. Bestselling author Caryn Dolley provides unprecedented insight into how apartheid-era policing structures lay the foundations for cop-gangster collusion and how these have endured into democracy.

With exclusive access to retired policeman André Lincoln’s life, Dolley exposes the dirty ploys that have swung South Africa’s trajectory; how street-level killings could be flashpoints of deep state proxy wars; and raises suspicions about who in Nelson Mandela’s realm backstabbed whom.

More riveting cases from the files of former police psychologist and bestselling author Gérard Labuschagne.

In this second instalment of The Profiler Diaries, former South African Police Service (SAPS) head profiler Dr Gérard Labuschagne, successor to the legendary Micki Pistorius, recalls more of the 110 murder series and countless other bizarre crimes he analysed during his career. An expert on serial murder and rape cases, Labuschagne saw it all in his fourteen and a half years in the SAPS. Often stymied by a lack of resources, office politics and legal incompetence, Labuschagne and his team were nevertheless determined to obtain justice for the victims whose cases they were tasked with investigating.

Tracking down a prolific serial stalker, linking the murders of two young women in Knysna, assessing a suspect threatening to assassinate Barack Obama and apprehending a serial murderer of sex workers are just a few of the intriguing – and often terrifying – cases he covers in his second book, The Profiler Diaries 2: From Crime Scene to Courtroom.

As Labuschagne says, catching a killer is one thing; getting them convicted in a court of law is an entirely different ball game. This book shows how it is done in fascinating detail.

Ná herhaaldelike polisiebrouwerk begin kaptein Ben Booysen die Krugersdorp-moorde in 2016 manalleen ondersoek.

Booysen haal koerantvoorblaaie toe hy die baasbrein, Cecilia Steyn, en haar vyf trawante vir minstens 11 moorde in hegtenis neem.

Suid-Afrika se eie “Chuck Norris” neem die leser tot agter die skerms van die satanistiese moorde en onthul nuwe, skokkende besonderhede van die misdade wat die land amper ’n dekade lank vasgenael gehou het.

The traditional image of a political assassin is a lone wolf with a gun, aimed squarely at the head of those they wish to kill. But while there has been enormous speculation on what lay behind notorious individual political assassinations – from Gaius Julius Caesar to John F. Kennedy – the phenomenon itself has scarcely been examined as a special category of political violence, one not motivated by personal gain or vengeance.

Now, in Day of the Assassins, acclaimed historian Michael Burleigh explores the many facets of political assassination, explaining the role of historical precedent, why it is more frequent in certain types of society than others and asking if assassination can either bring about change, or prevent it, and whether, like a contagious disease, political murder can be catching. Focusing chiefly on the last century and a half, Burleigh takes readers to the Congo, India, Iran, Laos, Rwanda and South Africa and revisits notable assassinations in Europe, Russia, Israel and the United States.

Throughout, the assassins themselves are at the centre of the narrative, whether they were cool, well-trained professional killers, like the agents of the NKVD or the KGB, or men motivated by the politicization of their private miseries. Even some of those who were demonstrably mad had method in the madness and acted for comprehensible political motives.

Combining human drama, questions of political morality and the sheer randomness of events, Day of the Assassins is a riveting insight into the politics of violence.

The story of a ‘rogue unit’ operating within the South African Revenue Service (SARS) became entrenched in the public mind following a succession of sensational reports published by the Sunday Times in 2014. The unit, the reports claimed, had carried out a series of illegal spook operations: they had spied on President Jacob Zuma, run a brothel, illegally bought spyware and entered into unlawful tax settlements.

In a plot of Machiavellian proportions, head of the elite crime-busting unit Johann van Loggerenberg and many of SARS’s top management were forced to resign. Van Loggerenberg’s select team of investigators, with their impeccable track record of busting high-level financial fraudsters and nailing tax criminals, lost not only their careers but also their reputations. Now, in this extraordinary account, they finally get to put the record straight and the rumours to rest: there was no ‘rogue unit’. The public had been deceived, seemingly by powers conspiring to capture SARS for their own ends.

Shooting down the allegations he has faced one by one, Van Loggerenberg tells the story of what really happened inside SARS, revealing details of some of the unit’s actual investigations.

Cops and Robbers: we think we know how to tell the good guys from the bad, but when it comes to Cape Town’s crime scene, things are anything but clear cut. Controlled by gangs, fuelled by drugs and policed by cops that, all too often, get caught on the wrong side of the action.

Among the Cape Town cops who have consistently claimed that colleagues are trying to pin crimes on them are Major General Andre Lincoln (former head of a national police unit mandated by Nelson Mandela), Major General Jeremy Vearey (known as SA’s top gang buster) and Lieutenant Colonel Charl Kinnear (who was investigating some of the country's most brutal underworld crimes when he was assassinated in September 2020). Colleagues and suspects alike pointed to all three as colluding with criminals. Who is telling the truth?

Journalist Caryn Dolley has tracked this tangled trail, following the corruption breadcrumbs, sifting through court documents, laying fact upon fact and exposing the depths and breadth of systemic corruption that was set in place during apartheid and has only become more entrenched during the first decades of our democracy. She has traced the rot from cops to underworld to politicians and back, exposing duplicitous networks that have for decades ensnared South Africa in an expanding cycle of organised crime and cop claim crossfire. At the centre of this crisis is the mounting collateral: the victims of Cape Town’s manufactured killing fields.

To The Wolves tells the true life story of how South Africa’s underworld came to be, what continues to fuel it today and how the deception and lies go all the way to the top...

News of the sensational priosn escape of the murderer and 'Facebook rapist' Thabo Bester, assisted by his lover, celebrity doctor Nandipha Magudumana, shocked South Africa.

In this book, Marecia Damons and Daniel Steyn, the Ground Up journalists who first exposed the scam, tell the full story, from Thabo and Nandipha's life stories and their unlikely love affair, all the way to his faked death and their eventual arrest, though in disguise, in Tanzania.

ust after dusk on Good Friday, 6 April 2012, the peace and quiet permeating the small Northern Cape town of Griekwastad was disrupted when a young teenage boy sped into town in his father’s Isuzu bakkie and screeched to a halt in front of the town’s nearly deserted police station. It was shortly before 19h00 when Don Steenkamp jumped out of the vehicle and ran into the station’s charge office, covered in blood, to announce that his parents and sister had been brutally shot and killed on the family farm, Naauwhoek.

Although the killings were initially thought to be just another farm attack, months later Don was arrested for the murders, setting in motion a chain of events that would grip South Africa and divide the people of Griekwastad.

Based on interviews with all the role-players, including the investigating offi cers on the case, the forensic and ballistic experts, and family and friends of the deceased, and concluding with the verdict and the sentencing, this is the riveting account of what really happened on Naauwhoek farm on that fateful day, as told by the reporter who followed the case from day one…

The Hawks, South Africa’s elite crime-fighting force, have put scores of our worst criminals behind bars. In this book, investigative journalist Graham Coetzer offers us a rare glimpse into the secretive world of this top police unit.

While exposing the deviousness of South Africa’s dangerous criminals, Hunting with the Hawks is also an ode to the hard work and dedication of the best of our police service.

When 18 year-old Morné Harmse walked into his Krugersdorp high school, armed with a samurai sword on a Monday in 2008, he had one mission – to commit a massacre. Inspired by the Columbine high school killings, his fantasy to make people "take notice" had been brewing for more than a year. By the time his sword-slashing spree had ended, 16-year-old Jacques Pretorius was dead and three others were brutally injured.

In the aftermath of what was described as “the most barbaric act of schoolboy violence in South African history” the country was left reeling. How does an ordinary boy from a "normal" family become a brutal killer overnight? Was Morné under the influence of a satanic cult? A protégée of mastermind Devilsdorp killer, Cecilia Steyn? Did his obsession with heavy metal band Slipknot drive him over the edge? Now, 14 years later, Morné Harmse is out on controversial parole.Written in mesmerising detail, Samurai Sword Murder finally puts together the pieces of this brutal tragedy.

From 1994 to 2000, when South Africa was a young democracy, the country was stalked by a succession of brutal serial killers. Psychologist Micki Pistorius became the first profiler for the South African Police Service, playing a vital role in identifying and interrogating these killers, as well as training detectives nationally and in other countries. She broke ground with her theory on the origin of serial killers and is considered a trailblazer in her field.

Catch Me a Killer was originally released in 2003 and details the cases she worked on – from the Station Strangler and the Phoenix Cane Killer to Boetie Boer and the Saloon Killer. The book also features legendary detectives such as Piet Byleveld and Suiker Britz, as well as the FBI’s Robert Ressler.

Released alongside a major TV series based on the book, this new edition of Catch Me a Killer includes a new chapter and up-to-date information about some of the cases, such as the parole of Norman Afzal Simons in 2023. This is essential reading for all true crime aficionados.

In his first work of nonfiction since The Innocent Man, #1 bestselling author John Grisham and Centurion Ministries Founder Jim McCloskey share ten harrowing true stories of wrongful convictions. Impeccably researched and grippingly told, Framed offers an inside look at the victims of the United States criminal justice system

In the aftermath of terrible crimes, the public demand immediate justice. Police and prosecutors rush to quickly close the case. But in Framed, John Grisham and Jim McCloskey unpick the reality. Ten wrongful conviction cases. Twenty-one innocent people. Ten stories with a truth more shocking than fiction.

Joe Bryan suffered the unbearable tragedy of his wife's murder, only to be tried and found guilty of the crime himself - despite being 120 miles away at the time it was committed. Clarence Brandley spent nine years on Death Row, coming to within six days of execution, before new evidence cleared him of all charges. And in the case of the Norfolk Four, police and prosecutors continued to arrest innocent people until not one but four men were behind bars.

Impeccably researched and told with page-turning conviction, in Framed, these cases are finally laid bare. John Grisham, the master of the legal thriller, teams up with Jim McCloskey, the founder of the first US organisation dedicated to exonerating innocent people, to tell ten gripping and shocking true stories that shine an astonishing light on miscarriages of justice.

Framed is the story of how truth can prevail and how freedom can be won when all seems lost and the deck is stacked against you.

All the cases in this book are simply extraordinary. And all are true.

Wat dryf ’n beeldskone jong ma van drie daartoe om haar man wreed te laat vermoor? Waarom wou Suretha Brits só graag van haar Leon ontslae raak?

Danksy inligting uit die binnekring van vriende, familie en mense ná aan die polisie-ondersoek, sit die joernalis Charné Kemp die stukkies van die legkaart bymekaar en vertel die volle verhaal van die opspraakwekkende huurmoord op die geliefde Pofadder-hotelbaas.

’n Boeiende ware misdaadverhaal wat draai om geld, diamante, Krugerrande, seks en verraad.

Locard’s Exchange Principle underpins all forensic science and holds that the perpetrator of a crime will bring something to the crime scene and leave with something from it.

Forensic experts use this principle daily to catch murderers and assailants. In Risking Life for Death, South African forensic pathologist Ryan Blumenthal offers a master class in this singular forensic technique based on real-life case studies. With more than twenty years’ experience in the field, Blumenthal explains how to look for clues and traces, and how what he does not find at autopsy is often more important than what he does find. In other words, the absence of evidence can sometimes be of greater value than the presence of evidence.

His account also highlights the dangers forensic pathologists are exposed to daily. As they try to unravel the puzzle of someone’s death, forensic pathologists often face life-threatening infections, toxic gases and the hazards associated with high-profile cases – in effect, risking their life to solve someone else’s death.

An understanding of Locard’s Exchange Principle can help you become a medical detective in your own life, can help you be a happier person and can even provide you with a better philosophy for growing older, Blumenthal argues.

From the bestselling author of The Lost City of Z, and the Number One international bestseller The Wager, comes a true-life murder story which became one of the FBI’s first major homicide investigations.

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions and sent their children to study in Europe.

Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. As the death toll climbed, the FBI took up the case. But the bureau badly bungled the investigation. In desperation, its young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to unravel the mystery. Together with the Osage he and his undercover team began to expose one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history.

After a string of police botches, Captain Ben "Bliksem" Booysen was assigned the Krugersdorp Killers' case in 2016.

Eleven people had already been brutally murdered by a group calling themselves Electus Per Deus. Booysen made headlines when he arrested the mastermind Cecilia Steyn, and her accomplices.

South Africa's own "Chuck Norris" takes the reader behind the scenes of the satanic killings, divulging new and shocking details of the crimes that have kept the nation on edge for almost a decade.

Crime scene investigation is a practical book dealing with the management, investigation, and control and processing of crime scenes, or scenes of incident, as they are now called. The book explains the important principles of continuity of possession and the importance of preventing contamination of the scene and evidence. It also focuses on the roles of experts and aids who can help investigating officers to solve complex and varied crimes. The book pays particular attention to the administrative process involved in the handling of evidence. This includes: The responsibilities of the investigating officer who has to deal with the incident; The various ways in which a scene of incident can be documented; The handling of people who may be present at the scene; The proper identification, collection, packaging and dispatch of evidence. Two of the unique features of the book is the introduction and explanation of a new investigation principle, namely the Lochner principle, and a new search method, namely the Lochner/Zinn search method.

Most serial murderers undeniably spring from abusive or neglected childhoods, and/or are potentially predisposed to various genetic, sociopathic or schizophrenic afflictions, rendering the root cause of their murderous behaviour a complex, lethal combination of factors. What is less credited, however, is the role of pathological narcissism and narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) in the making of a serial killer.

Narcissistic rage, sexual narcissism, necrophilia and cannibalism are all driven by a need to control and satisfy a grandiose sense of entitlement for personal pleasure, and of those, narcissistic rage is possibly the most dangerous factor of all in the understanding of serial rape and murder. In this riveting book, the author explores the role of NPD through the lived experiences of various serial murderers and showcases the profiles of both infamous and lesser-known serial offenders from South Africa and around the world.

From the blatant, callous criminality of the likes of Jason Rohde, Dina Rodrigues and Henri van Breda to the unspeakable cruelty of serial rapists and murderers like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Kobus Geldenhuys (the Norwood killer) and Don Steenkamp (the Griekwastad murderer), this book reveals the role pathological narcissism might have played in some of the most notorious and gruesome criminal cases of our times. Just one warning: Don’t read this book at night!

At the very dawn of the country’s brave new democracy, Cape Town was at war. Pagad, which started as a community protest action against crime, had mutated into a sinister vigilante group wreaking death and destruction across the city. Between 1996 and 2001, there were more than 400 bombs – most famously at the popular Planet Hollywood restaurant at the V&A Waterfront – and there were countless targeted hits on drug lords and gang bosses.

The police were at their wits end. The new ANC government was alarmed. The citizens of Cape Town were living in fear.

Mark Shaw tells the incredible tale of how the police’s response pulled together former foes – struggle cadres and the apartheid security apparatus – to break the Pagad death squads. It is a story that has never been told in full and was not possible until recently, when many were released from prison or had retired and were finally willing to talk openly about this revealing chapter in South Africa’s recent history.

In April 2021, the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions of 39 former Subpostmasters and ruled their prosecutions were an affront to the public conscience. They were just a few of the hundreds who had been prosecuted by the Post Office using IT evidence from an unreliable computer system called Horizon. When the Post Office became aware that Horizon didn't work properly, it covered it up. The Great Post Office Scandal is the story of how these innocent people had their lives ruined by a once-loved national institution and how, against overwhelming odds, they fought back to clear their names. Gripping, heart-breaking and enlightening, The Great Post Office Scandal should be read by everyone who wants to understand how this massive miscarriage of justice was allowed to happen.

In the 1990s, deep-cover police agent RS536 took on the Durban underworld as part of a new organised crime intelligence unit. He rubbed shoulders with drug lords, smugglers and corrupt cops, and was instrumental in busting an international drug ring and foiling a bank heist, among many other dangerous engagements.

But then, as the country’s new democracy birthed a struggle between the old and the new guard in the South African Police Service, his identity and his life came under threat. In this action-packed account, Johann van Loggerenberg describes how, as a young policeman, he worked closely with the investigative team of the Goldstone Commission to uncover the ‘third force’ – apartheid security forces that supplied weapons to the Inkatha Freedom Party to destabilise the country.

He also delves into how and why, at the height of state capture at the South African Revenue Service in 2014, he was falsely accused of being an apartheid spy, a lie that persists up to today. Here, finally, is the truth behind deep-cover police agent RS536.

The presumption of innocence is widely accepted as a fundamental principle of criminal justice. In some countries (like South Africa and Canada) it has been elevated to a constitutionally guaranteed right, subject to a general limitations clause. The presumption of innocence is also found in international instruments and there is much laudatory rhetoric in support of this presumption. There is, however, very little consensus regarding the exact content and scope of the presumption of innocence. This lack of consensus creates considerable confusion concerning the practical application of the presumption. This book is an attempt to secure consensus, and to present some constructive solutions to the various theoretical and practical problems which exist in respect of the presumption of innocence.

It's hard to live when you think you deserve to die... When a tired old inmate is found dead in his cell, the prison is obligated to investigate and so DI Barton attends. The men he interviews have been convicted of some of the worst things a human being can do, but it appears likely that the death was due to natural causes. When the house of the dead man is burgled and that crime is followed by a suspicious fire, Barton desperately needs to speak to his widow, but she's nowhere to be found. In the space of twenty-four hours, everyone he wants to talk to has vanished. Then he receives some post which makes him believe he could be the next to disappear. Barton's investigation goes full circle, through a series of brutal murders, back to the prison, and all signs are pointing to the fact that he's made a terrible mistake. There's a violent killer on the loose, who wants everyone to learn that some people deserve to die. DI Barton is back as Ross Greenwood continues with his bestselling series, perfect for fans of Mark Billingham and Ian Rankin. Praise for Ross Greenwood: 'Move over Rebus and Morse; a new entry has joined the list of great crime investigators in the form of Detective Inspector John Barton. A rich cast of characters and an explosive plot kept me turning the pages until the final dramatic twist.' author Richard Burke 'Master of the psychological thriller genre Ross Greenwood once again proves his talent for creating engrossing and gritty novels that draw you right in and won't let go until you've reached the shocking ending.' Caroline Vincent at Bitsaboutbooks blog 'Ross Greenwood doesn't write cliches. What he has written here is a fast-paced, action-filled puzzle with believable characters that's spiced with a lot of humour.' author Kath Middleton

Discover Gillian Godden's action-packed gangland thrillers!Diamond by name... Handsome, wealthy and successful, lawyer Nick Diamond is a man who commands and expects respect from everyone he meets. People think he is a man to be trusted. They are wrong. Deadly by nature. Because away from his glittering life in upper-class Chelsea, Nick is keeping a dark and dangerous secret. One that takes him to the slum estates of Glasgow and a very different world. Nick will do anything to keep his secret under wraps, because if it's ever revealed it would be his downfall. Don't miss this brilliant new gangland story from Gillian Godden - guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat! Perfect for fans of Kimberley Chambers, Heather Atkinson and Caz Finlay. What people are saying about Gillian Godden! 'An edge of your seat read that will leave you breathless!' Bestselling author, Kerry Kaya. 'Characters were so real I'm still looking over my shoulder! Bestselling author Owen Mullen.