In the irreverent tradition of her best-selling Death by Carbs, Paige Nick rounds up a fresh herd of sacred cows in another hilarious local satire. But this time it’s Number One who gets the treatment.

When ex-president J Muza is released from prison on medical parole for an ingrown toenail, his expectations of a triumphant return to power and admiration are cruelly dashed. His once lavish Homestead is a rotting shell, his remaining wives have ganged up on him, the Guptas have blocked his number, and not even Robert Mugabe will take his calls any more. And he just can’t seem to get his plans for world domination off the ground. Muza is banking on his memoirs full of fake news to pep up his profile, but his ghostwriter, a disgraced journalist, has problems and a tight deadline of his own. What Muza’s not banking on is a fat bill for outstanding rates on The Homestead, and a 30-day deadline to pay back the money, before the bailiffs arrive to evict him.

Is Muza a mastermind, or simply a puppet who fell into the wrong hands? Who is really playing who? What are his remaining wives up to, and will they stay or will they go? And how will he ever pay back the money? Can the ghostwriter make his deadline before he winds up dead? Or are both men destined to be homeless and loathed forever?

Paola Dante is a driven project manager employed by a large multinational information technology corporation who reads war strategy books for relaxation. In general she prefers computers to people with their random uncontrolled emotions. Long ago she made a decision that matters of the heart were inherently messy and should be kept at arm’s distance. But her husband had surprised her; she had no resistance against Daniel. Now she sees herself as a survivor who has successfully moved on from the traumatic events and terrible truth surrounding her husband’s sudden disappearance years before. But the truth is that ever since the night he walked out on their marriage back to his old ways she’s found it hard to get on with normal life.

An unlikely and ill-equipped mother, she stands alone between their adopted daughter Simone and the criminal kingpin who wants the teenage girl for his own ends and has set the savage wolves on her.

To save her daughter - and herself - once and for all, Paola will face her every fear, her every mistake, and the past she thought she’d finally processed and left behind.

She tells herself an hour is not so long to wait, and steps outside. The street is empty. Then she hears the car. She keeps still. That saves you if you are in danger. Her daddy says so. Friday evening. A deserted street below Table Mountain. A six year-old ballerina waits alone for her mother to fetch her. Then an unmarked car approaches, and she is gone. Captain Riedwaan Faizal is a member of Cape Town’s elite Gang Unit. Tough and streetwise, he is used to being a target. But when the danger of his anti-gang war envelops his only daughter and he becomes the prime suspect in her abduction, there is little he can do. He turns to Dr Clare Hart, investigative journalist and criminal profiler. Their desperate search for the missing child, whose chances of survival diminish with each hour, unravels a web of deception and danger that puts all their lives at terrible risk.

Iemand loer vanuit die skadus.

Verslaggewer Anje Bruwer verruil die gevaarlike strate van Johannesburg vir ’n rustiger lewe in Colesberg om ’n misdaadroman te skryf.

Maar die platteland is allermins rustig: Daar is ’n menseslagter los wie se gruweldade Anje se kop laat duisel. Sy loop haar in sy web vas wanneer sy vir die plaaslike koerant oor sy moorde begin verslag lewer.

Kaptein Siegfried Scholtz – ’n man wie se skuldgevoelens hom ry – kan nie anders nie as om Anje by die ondersoek te betrek.

Gaan hulle daarin slaag om te keer dat die moordenaar nog ’n lewe wreed in ’n bloederige swartsak verpak?

Die afloerder is ’n sielkundige riller so koud en donker as kan kom.

Murder is on the menu.

Detective Storm van der Merwe and Andreas Moerdyk are back in this brand-new thriller by Irna van Zyl, author of Dead in the Water.

Storm now works in Hermanus and during a lunch with her friend at Zebardines, a much-hated food blogger keels over and dies. It turns out that there were deadly mushrooms, death cups, in her food.

Finding out who killed the blogger is Storm’s first priority, but not the only matter requiring her attention: her old colleague, Andreas Moerdyk, quit his job unexpectedly and expects Storm to put him up while he makes a new start in Hermanus.

Amid frantic preparations for Fooddotcom’s prize-giving ceremony that will honour the country’s best chefs, the murderer strikes again, and again.

Storm’s time is running out.

Hierdie verhaal van Leon van Nierop is ’n fenomeen wat oorspronklik die lig gesien het as radiovervolgverhaal (1979), toe ’n roman geword het (1983), daarna ’n televisiereeks (1985) – en nou word dit in Oktober vanjaar uitgereik as rolprent, die eerste “Boere-noir”.

Leon het self die draaiboek geskryf, en dít het hom geïnspireer om weer hierdie roman te skep! Dit is dus ’n totaal nuwe roman wat tot stand gekom het, met dieselfde geliefde karakters as destyds, maar geplaas in die hier-en-nou van hedendaagse Suid-Afrika.

Die mooi jong Sonja Daneel beland in Hazyview in ’n motorongeluk. Sy herwin haar bewussyn, maar ly egter aan geheueverlies. Sy herstel by die skouspelagtige Hotel Njala, en raak betrokke by die intriges en lotgevalle van ’n formidabele familie wie se lewens onlosmaakbaar verbind is aan dié onheilspellende hotel.

Voeg hierby geraamtes uit Sonja se eie verlede wat spoedig hul opwagting begin maak en die tafel is gedek vir ’n heerlike, spannende storie wat lesers nie sal kan neersit nie.

Almost fired for insubordination, detectives Benny Griessel and Vaughn Cupido find themselves demoted, exiled from the elite Hawks unit and dispatched to the leafy streets of Stellenbosch. Working a missing persons report on student Callie de Bruin is not the level of work they are used to, but it's all they get. And soon, it takes a dangerous, deeply disturbing turn.

Stellenbosch is beautiful, but its economy has been ruined by one man. Jasper Boonstra and his gigantic corporate fraud have crashed the local property market, just when estate agent Sandra Steenberg desperately needs a big sale. Bringing up twins and supporting her academic husband, she is facing disaster. Then she gets a call. From Jasper Boonstra, fraudster, sexual predator and owner of a superb property worth millions, even now.

For Sandra, the stakes are high and about to get way higher. For Benny Griessel, clinging to sobriety and the relationship that saved his life, the truth about Callie can only lead to more trouble.

It hasn’t been a great week for struggling actor Arnold Prinsloo. His career has hit rock bottom, he’s about to be evicted from his cottage in Melville, and worst of all, Zelda, the love of his life, has finally run out of patience and left him.

But when Arnold is accused of murdering insurance billionaire JP Mulder, his problems are only just starting.

Now, Arnold must tackle the greatest and most dangerous acting role of his life: pretending to be a hard-boiled East Rand detective in a race against time to clear his name, win back Zelda, and finally take off these way-too-tight polyester pants.

The curtain is rising …

What is the cost of giving a gift? What is the cost of receiving one?

At eleven years old, Julian Flint prefers to remain invisible, safe inside the architecture of adults provided by his mother, his uncle and his aunt.But when his mother, Emma, a celebrated sculptor, takes them all on a family holiday to a hotel by the sea, he meets the captivating and irreverent Clare and everything he thought he knew begins to shift – setting off a chain of events that will determine each of their fates.

From the author of The Dream House and The White Room comes Craig Higginson’s most gripping and nuanced novel to date. Moving from the lush beaches of uMhlanga Rocks to the stark midwinter wastes of Johannesburg and the rich and strange coral reefs of Mauritius, this masterfully plotted novel explores the fault lines between loyalty and betrayal, innocence and accountability, blindness and perception, entrapment and flight.

The Book of Gifts dives into the deepest and most hazardous reaches of human consciousness in order to catch the brightest fish.

Maks Ntaka has a target on his back.

After years of loyal work for Arms-Tech Industries, Maks has found proof of serious corruption in his department. Tender fraud, illegal kickbacks, inflated contracts, the same old story. Maks wants to do something about it, turn whistleblower. What else can a good man do?

But who can he tell if he can’t trust anyone? The people in charge seem complicit, while the rest turn a blind eye. Soon suspicions cloud the office, and all the knives are out for whoever turns on them first. As Maks pre-pares his disclosures, he discovers that his longtime mentor has implicated him in the illegalities. Not only is he being set up by his company, but some foreign nationals with deep pockets are also on his trail looking for their cut. For Maks, the walls are closing in, and danger waits at every turn.

Meanwhile, his own private indiscretions are coming to light, and soon his life starts collapsing around him.

In this compelling and harrowing account of a whistleblower, Onke Mazibuko creates a nail-biting, paranoid thriller about a good man pushed to the limit. Drawing from all too real instances of corruption and collapse, this book shows what such a system does to those who still listen to their conscience.

What is a good man to do when your own company made the bullet with your name on it?

Money. Money. Money. Tons of it. In US dollars. And it’s all being funnelled into a government tender snagged by family-owned Amalfi Civils. Which would be great for business if CEO Angela wasn’t fighting with her CFO brother Rej.

Where Angela sees corruption, Rej sees cabinet ministers, politicians, officials eager to lend a hand. For a fee. It’s a big pot so he’s happy to oblige. And if needs be he’ll take out his sister to keep the lucre.

There are other players in this game. The CIA for one. The State Security Agency for another. And a black op using lawyer and spy Vicki Kahn as a honeytrap to ensnare Rej’s middleman – the very same middleman that her lover, PI Fish Pescado, is investigating.

With these stakes, it’s only time before the killing starts.