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Cape Town

This series plunges readers into the gritty heart of contemporary South Africa through high-octane literary thrillers. It follows characters caught in a vortex of violence, corruption, and crime, often on the run from their past. Each installment offers an unflinching panorama of societal darkness, exploring everything from affluent enclaves to the sprawling, labyrinthine slums. Prepare for relentless pacing and a deep dive into the country's complex underbelly.

Wake Up Dead
Mixed Blood

Recommended Reading Order

  1. 1

    Mixed Blood

    A Cape Town Thriller

    • 320 pages
    • 12 hours of reading
    3.7(30)Add rating

    A corrupt cop, a gangbanger, and an ex-marine sitting on three million dollars in stolen cash find themselves entangled in this cinematic cape town thriller ( Bookpage ). Reluctant bank robber Jack Burn is on the run after a heist in the United States that left three million dollars missing and one cop dead. Hiding out in Cape Town, South Africa, he is desperate to build a new life for his pregnant wife and young son. But on a tranquil evening in their new suburban neighborhood, they are the victims of a random gangland break-in. Benny Mongrel, an ex-con night watchman, knows who went into Burn's house, and what the American did to them. Burn's actions soon trap them both in a cat-and-mouse game with Rudi Gatsby Barnard, a corrupt Afrikaner cop. Once Gatsby smells those missing American millions, the men are drawn into a web of murder and vengeance that builds to an unforgettable conclusion.

    Mixed Blood
  2. 2

    Wake Up Dead

    • 290 pages
    • 11 hours of reading
    3.8(306)Add rating

    An amphetamine-fueled thriller about a bombshell American widow on the run in Cape Town’s violent badlands—from a writer being compared to George Pelecanos and Richard Price A split-second decision with no second chance: get it wrong and you wake up dead. On a blowtorch-hot night in Cape Town, American ex-model Roxy Palmer and her gunrunner husband, Joe, are carjacked, leaving Joe lying in a pool of blood. As the carjackers make their getaway, Roxy makes a fateful choice that changes her life forever. Disco and Godwynn, the ghetto gangbangers who sped away in Joe’s convertible, will stop at nothing to track her down. Billy Afrika, a mixed-race ex-cop turned mercenary, won’t let her out of his sight because Joe owed him a chunk of money. And remorselessly hunting them all is Piper, a love-crazed psychopath determined to renew his vows with his jailhouse “wife,” Disco. As these desperate lives collide and old debts are settled in blood, Roxy is caught in a wave of escalating violence in the beautiful and brutal African seaport. With savage plotting and breakneck suspense that ends in a shattering cataclysm of violence, Wake Up Dead confirms Roger Smith as one of the world’s best new thriller writers.

    Wake Up Dead