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 sen...

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 ...

The Earl of Essenburg, Steven Hargraves, is dead.Assassinated by an unknown assailant, his death plunges the earldom into a bloody civil war. Rival siblings of the murdered lord have vied for control of the region for three long years. Frederick, the rightful heir to his father's title, lies ensconced in Bode Castle, held under siege by his younger sister Catherine's army.As alliances shift and unforeseen forces are brought into the conflict, an innocent ne...