Mike Nicol Books in Order

Mike Nicol examines the Black journalists who shaped Drum magazine during the 1950s in South Africa. Their reporting, recollections, and colleagues' tributes reveal the magazine's literary world and the pressures leading toward the Sharpeville massacre.

Captain Sylvester Nunes becomes the center of a story mixing political authority with myth and magic. Sorcerers, angels, and pirates challenge his world in Nicol's first novel, where factual history and fantastical invention continually intersect.

Enoch Mistas emerges with a Bible chained to his wrist and a message of approaching disaster. His growing following among the dispossessed threatens the president, turning religious prophecy into a confrontation over power and rebellion.

Poems shaped by travel through Greece and a winter in England confront the difficulty of escaping South Africa. Expatriate hopes of settling into another country meet unfamiliar landscapes, social unease and the persistent weight of violence at home.

Writing around South Africa's first democratic election, Mike Nicol considers the country's violent past and uncertain transition. Interviews, personal recollections, and his family's settler history inform his account of the period surrounding Nelson Mandela's rise to power.

A hooded rider carries violence through a mythic version of southern Africa. Drawing on the Book of Revelation, Nicol follows this destructive presence through a landscape shaped by colonial history, cruelty, and the persistence of evil.

Writer Robert Poley investigates the death of arms dealer Christo Mercer, stabbed in the Sahara. A laptop and cryptic messages draw him into connections between weapons trading, rebels, and the unresolved history of post-apartheid South Africa.

After a year in Berlin, Mike Nicol returns to Cape Town and reconsiders his relationship with the city. This memoir explores its changing present alongside personal memory and the histories embedded in its streets and landscape.

Mike Nicol traces the history of South African law firm Webber Wentzel Bowens through the people who worked there. Their decisions, achievements, and setbacks illuminate the firm's development within the country's changing professional and political environment.

Former gunrunners Mace Bishop and Pylon Buso provide security for wealthy visitors in Cape Town. Bombings, illegal weapons, and blood diamonds pull them toward the criminal dealings they hoped to leave behind and threaten their new business.

Paroled criminal Obed Chocho and a judge's security needs draw Mace Bishop and Pylon Buso into another dangerous assignment. Competing schemes and Sheemina February's interest in Mace complicate a case where apparent loyalties offer little reassurance.

Mike Nicol recounts the life and work of South African photojournalist Ken Oosterbroek alongside his photographs. The book examines his career and the upheaval surrounding the country's transition toward the democratic elections of 1994.

An investigation connected to a drag racer and a murdered bystander brings Fish Pescado into conflict with powerful police interests. Lawyer Vicki Kahn joins a case involving old hit squads, criminal connections, and rhino horn trafficking.

Mace Bishop and Pylon Buso protect casino investors as an escaped weapons scientist and a kidnapping draw outside attention. A reporter's questions and Sheemina February's revenge connect their security work to dangerous histories reaching beyond Cape Town.

Krista Bishop's security business receives a government assignment protecting two Chinese businessmen amid a struggle over abalone poaching. A gang leader's request to guard his daughter pulls Krista further into the escalating conflict between criminal interests.

Vicki Kahn's work in Berlin uncovers child trafficking linked to the president's son, followed by a contact's murder. In Cape Town, Fish Pescado investigates a colonel's death as their cases approach South Africa's political leadership.

The murder of an energy minister and an investigator's apparent suicide lead Fish Pescado toward a missing client. Meanwhile, Vicki Kahn is recruited to track terrorists in a case involving stolen uranium and a kidnapped scientist.

Internal Crime Unit detective Zara Dewane investigates murdered family members and a scheme supplying guns to gangs. Connections to senior police and politicians make the inquiry dangerous, especially when those behind the operation begin targeting her own family.