Download or read book Daisy de Melker written by Ted Botha and published by Jonathan Ball Publishers. This book was released on 2023-04-26 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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. Against the backdrop of Johannesburg in its golden age, a booming metropolis of opulence and chaos nicknamed the 'City of Gold' and the 'University of Crime', she had quietly gone about her sinister business while around her sensational crimes grabbed the headlines. There was the marauding Foster Gang, which left at least ten people dead; a dashing German hustler; a local Bonnie and Clyde; an innocent student walking in Zoo Lake park at the wrong time and a man who escaped death row to become one of South Africa's most revered authors. These interlinking stories are told in the style of a thriller and with riveting, kaleidoscopic detail. In Daisy de Melker, Ted Botha weaves together a fantastic cast of killers and con men, detectives and lawmen, journalists and authors – even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Herman Charles Bosman – to depict a grand and desperate city. For almost twenty years Daisy hid in the shadows but when someone finally spoke up about the suspicious deaths around her, it led to a trial like nothing the City of Gold had ever seen and spread her name across the world.

Download or read book Research for Daisy de Melker written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Daisy de Melker written by Lènor Tancred and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Blood on Her Hands written by Tanya Farber and published by Jonathan Ball Publishers. This book was released on 2019-06-24 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Murder has always fascinated us, and when women are the masterminds, the intrigue grows exponentially. Not only are female murderers much rarer than male killers, but their crimes usually also involve a more sophisticated type of plotting. In Blood on her hands, award-winning journalist Tanya Farber investigates the lives, minds and motivations of some of South Africa's most notorious female murderers, from the poisonous nurse Daisy de Melker, to the privileged but deeply disturbed Najwa Petersen, to the mysterious Joey Harhoff who died before revealing where the bodies of her victims (including her own niece) were. Farber sets each case against the backdrop of the different eras and regions of 20th and early 21st century South Africa the women operated in. Her writing style is lighter than the subject matter might suggest and Blood on Her Hands will keep you reading until late at night – probably with your light on. The women featured also include: Dina Rodrigues, Phoenix Racing Cloud Theron, Marlene Lehnberg, Chane van Heerden and Celiwe Mbokazi.

Download or read book Family Secrets written by William A. Stricklin and published by Dorrance Publishing. This book was released on 2018-10-30 with total page 760 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Family Secrets By: William Stricklin Family Secrets discloses the darkest secrets over a thousand years. This nonfiction book is evidence that the writer’s family may be firmly founded on the five strong pillars of murder, betrayal, greed, lust, and incest and has far more than its fair share of family secrets. Research over half a century has created this book not to be put down: a pregnant nun; the secret library in the Strickland Manor where Catherine Parr, Queen of England and Henry VIII’s sixth wife, locked prohibited books away from the castle in order to keep her head from being chopped off; regicide of a boy king by his stepmother; a hunting trip in which Stricklin’s forebear puts a hunting javelin between the shoulder blades of his best friend… then hastily married his gorgeous wife fourteen days later; a ménage during a coronation dinner including a new bride and new mother-in-law; abduction of Stricklin’s two-day-old maternal great-grandmother during a Comanche raid and the saga of her escape from slavery; and the murder trial of Katie Stricklin who used arsenic to poison her family.

Download or read book Serial Killers Around the World written by Dirk C. Gibson and published by Bentham Science Publishers. This book was released on 2014-11-28 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Serial Killers Around the World: The Global Dimensions of Serial Murder compiles serial murder case studies from several countries - from Australia to Great Britain, and from Japan to Pakistan. The author has covered accounts on a wide array of serial killers including some well known felons namely Jack the Ripper, The Butcher of Mons, Martin & Marie Dumollard, as well as some of the lesser known serial slayers such as Daisy DeMelker, Yoshio Kodaira, Javed Iqbal and many more. The book highlights six dimensions of each case: the killer(s), the serial murders, other crimes, communication, the investigation and trial and punishment of the accused. Readers, both general and aspiring criminologists alike, will find Serial Killers Around the World an interesting resource for critical information on serial murders committed in nations around the world.

Download or read book Maverick written by Lauren Beukes and published by Penguin Random House South Africa. This book was released on 2015-10-19 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Africa’s first black movie star to a stylish commie revolutionary, showgirls and soccer stars, writers and poets, activists, artists, a pop princess, a prophetess and a cold-blooded killer, Maverick explores the riveting, true tales of women who broke with convention. Updated, expanded, and now with photographs, this edition of Lauren Beukes’s first book casts light onto the fascinating lives of some of South Africa’s most famous – and notorious – women.

Download or read book The Ghost That Closed Down The Town written by Arthur Goldstuck and published by Penguin Random House South Africa. This book was released on 2012-10-02 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arthur Goldstuck made the world of South African urban legends his own with four best-sellers during the 1990s. Now he returns to this landscape, but from a very different angle: looking at the extent to which ghost stories are really urban legends - stories spread by word of mouth (and the media) as absolute truth, but falling short on evidence and reality. In exploring ghost stories as urban legends, Goldstuck makes a fascinating discovery: the ghostly beliefs of each culture across South Africa have had a profound impact on the supernatural beliefs of every other cultural group in the country over the past four centuries. The result is the story of the South African ghost: a unique and complex character that reflects a turbulent history and a harsh existence and sheds a fascinating light on the nature of supernatural experience throughout the world. For instance, what do the Flying Dutchman and the Uniondale Ghost have in common? Why do the ghosts of so many of the country's fallen soldiers wander the earth seeking their forbidden lovers? How do our religious beliefs affect the way we see ghosts? How many ghosts of Daisy de Melker are really out there? Arthur Goldstuck has some of the answers in a book that challenges much conventional thinking about the supernatural.

Download or read book The Love Song of Andr P Brink written by Leon de Kock and published by Jonathan Ball Publishers. This book was released on 2019-05-08 with total page 543 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Love Song of André P Brink is the first biography of this major South African novelist who, during his lifetime, was published in over 30 languages and ranked with the likes of Gabriel García Márquez, Peter Carey and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Leon de Kock's eagerly awaited account of Brink's life is richly informed by a previously unavailable literary treasure: the dissident Afrikaner's hoard of journal-writing, a veritable chronicle that was 54 years in the making. In this massive new biographical source – running to a million words – Brink does not spare himself, or anyone else for that matter, as he narrates the ups and downs of his five marriages and his compulsive affairs with a great number of women. These are precisely the topics that the rebel in both politics and sex skated over in his memoir, A Fork in the Road. De Kock's biographical study of the author who came close to winning the Nobel Prize for Literature not only synthesises the journals but also subjects them to searching critical analysis. In addition, the biographer measures the journals against additional sources, both scholarly and otherwise, among them the testimony of Brink's friends, family, wives and lovers. The Love Song of André P Brink subjects Brink's literary legacy to a bracing scholarly re-evaluation, making this major new biography a crucial addition to scholarship on Brink.

Download or read book Bullet in the Heart written by Beverley Roos-Muller and published by Jonathan Ball Publishers. This book was released on 2023-05-24 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'A precious and rare publication ... The moving stories of love, longing and suffering provide valuable new insights into tumultuous times that helped shape South Africa.' – Max du Preez It is nine months this evening since I last saw the light in my own house, when I had to tear myself away from all that is dear to me. And today is also my little son's birthday. Oh, how I long for home. So wrote Michael Muller in 1901 as he gazed at the lights of Cape Town from a ship bound for Bermuda, after months of internment in a British POW camp in Simon's Town. The camps were full, so Boer prisoners were being sent to other parts of the empire. Michael's brothers, Chris and Pieter, were exiled to Ceylon while Lool was held in the Green Point camp in Cape Town. Remarkably, three of the brothers kept diaries, the only known instance of this happening in the Boer War. The scrawled notes of Chris on the evening after the legendary Magersfontein battle, the rain-dashed pages written by Lool in Colesberg, and the angry words penned by Michael about his treatment at Surrender Hill have the urgency of men determined to go on record. When Beverley Roos-Muller began to explore writing about the Boer experience of the war, she read the tiny diary of Michael, grandfather of her husband, Ampie Muller. It led her to the discovery of the other diaries and many more documents. She also records the brothers' difficult return home and examines the consequences for South Africa of the bitterness this strife evoked. This is a beautifully told account of the fellowship of four brothers in war, their capture and eventual recovery.

Download or read book Positively Me written by Nozibele Mayaba and published by Jonathan Ball Publishers. This book was released on 2024-05-08 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My name is Nozibele Mayaba, and I am HIV-positive. I am a devout Christian who did everything by the book: worked hard, got good marks, found a steady job and helped to make life better for my family. In our neighbourhood, I was the girl other parents pointed to as a role model. Until a few months before my diagnosis at age 22, I was a virgin. Women like me don't get HIV. But then I did. It took me years to accept my new reality. Speaking out freed meand completely changed my life. Being HIV-positive wasn't my first challenge and it won't be my last, but it has been the hardest. It also taught me an important lesson: behind every statistic is a person with a name, a family, a story. This is my story. My name is Nozibele Mayaba, I am HIV-positive, and I am still positively me. An HIV-positive diagnosis may no longer be a death sentence, but it still changes everything. In this frank, vulnerable memoir, as told to acclaimed writer Sue Nyathi, activist and TV host Nozibele Mayaba talks about finding purpose when you think your life has come to an end.

Download or read book The Buck that Buries its Poo written by Quinton Coetzee and published by Jonathan Ball Publishers. This book was released on 2023-05-29 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is a zebra black with white stripes or white with black stripes? And why do flamingos stand on one leg while bats hang upside down? Did you know that a chameleon's tongue can shoot out at five times the acceleration of a fighter jet? In The Buck That Buries its Poo, naturalist Quinton Coetzee answers these and many other intriguing wildlife questions. He also dispels countless myths and elucidates some of the legends that surround creatures in the South African bush we thought we knew all about. For example, bats do not get tangled in people's hair (because they are far too adept at flying) and elephants are not afraid of mice (but they do fear bees!). Other tall tales you might hear around the campfire are that lions roll in animal dung, entrails or carcasses to disguise their scent, and that rhinos have a predilection for stamping out fires. What is true, though, is that hyenas are more closely related to cats than to dogs. This handy guide is based on Coetzee's own research and that of others, and his experience gleaned over decades living close to nature and wildlife. It seeks to unravel the mysteries of nature in Africa – from mammals and birds to arthropods and plants – with fascinating information and fun trivia. It is a book that will enlighten and entertain. PS: Zebras are black with white stripes!

Download or read book How to Fix unf ck a Country written by Roy Havemann and published by Jonathan Ball Publishers. This book was released on 2024-04-02 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After state capture, South Africa is f*cked not in a good place. The system is down. How do we reboot? Our is not the first country to find itself in a difficult spot. China, India, South Korea, Vietnam and many others have gone from being economic basket cases to powerhouses, lifting millions out of poverty. So how can we pick ourselves up and fix things? In this book, Roy Havemann argues that right now we need to focus on six basic 'E's: Eskom, Education, Environment, Exports, Equality, and Ethics. Havemann lays out how we can practically bring in lessons from other countries and learn from their achievements and mistakes, for example, how China, Greece and Colombia solved load-shedding, how different South American countries are dealing with inequality and how Brazil and Kenya are upgrading their education systems. He shows that we are slowly moving in the right direction. Our own 'Operation Vulindlela' delivery unit, which is a joint initiative of the Presidency and the Treasury, is implementing change where it's needed but more can be done to accelerate reforms to make South Africa a success. Sometimes the solutions to our problems are right here in our very own country – all that is needed is for us to recognise and harness them.

Download or read book Escape to Prison written by Michael Welch and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2015-05-01 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The resurrection of former prisons as museums has caught the attention of tourists along with scholars interested in studying what is known as dark tourism. Unsurprisingly, due to their grim subject matter, prison museums tend to invert the ÒDisneylandÓ experience, becoming the antithesis of Òthe happiest place on earth.Ó In Escape to Prison, the culmination of years of international research, noted criminologist Michael Welch explores ten prison museums on six continents, examining the complex interplay between culture and punishment. From Alcatraz to the Argentine Penitentiary, museums constructed on the former locations of surveillance, torture, colonial control, and even rehabilitation tell unique tales about the economic, political, religious, and scientific roots of each siteÕs historical relationship to punishment.

Download or read book Risking Life for Death written by Ryan Blumenthal and published by Jonathan Ball Publishers. This book was released on 2023-07-03 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every contact leaves a trace: a single strand of hair or a tiny droplet of blood can be the silent witness at a crime scene. 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.

Download or read book Insights into the Rugby World Cup written by Nick Mallet and published by Jonathan Ball Publishers. This book was released on 2023-08-03 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever since the springboks won the Rugby World Cup in 1995, South Africans have been passionate about the tournament that is the pinnacle of sporting achievement. Nick Mallett, who coached the Boks at the 1999 World Cup, has become a household name for his incisive and forthright commentary and analysis. Join him as he takes you into the beating heart of the tournament, which kicks off in Paris in September. He tackles the following key questions: •How strong are the Boks going into the RWC? •Who are the favourites to win, and why? •How does one 'play' the referee – both on and off the field? •What are playing conditions like in France, where Mallett coached for a decade? •Can Rassie Erasmus do it again and pull off a double win? Filled with keen insights, opinions and anecdotes of games past, this is a book every fan should read.

Download or read book The Man Who Shook Mountains written by Lesley Mofokeng and published by Jonathan Ball Publishers. This book was released on 2023-03-15 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'This is a South African story of an unsung hero, a man forgotten by history – though not by me, nor by the people who knew and respected him ...' When his grandfather gave sermons, he was 'capable of shaking mountains', a church leader tells journalist and author Lesley Mofokeng. 'Ntate Mofokeng pulled people towards God with the great and rare talent of a motivator.' In this revealing book, Mofokeng investigates the life of his grandfather, Mongangane Wilfred Mofokeng, a prominent Dutch Reformed Church evangelist. In the 1950s, as Black South Africans were being evicted from the cities to live in reserves and homelands, Mongangane set out to build a community at a dusty cattle post in the far North West province. There he managed to establish a resilient community that mostly lived outside the repressions of the apartheid regime. The journey takes the author from Johannesburg's Marabi-soaked townships of the 1930s to his childhood home of Gelukspan near Lichtenburg and then to rural Free State and the mountain kingdom of Lesotho. In what becomes a spiritual quest, he traces the inspirational footsteps of his ancestors and the legendary King Moshoeshoe. Mofokeng also explores the politics and history of the Dutch Reformed Church's Black constituency and uncovers why to this day it is called Kereke ya Fora – or 'Church of the French' – and its hymns are sung across denominations and in social spaces outside the church.