Ted Botha’s books have been praised as “enthralling,” “highly readable,” “crackling,” “heartfelt,” “thrilling,” “electrifying.” The author Deon Meyer called his “Daisy de Melker” “an instant classic,” while the author Alexandra Fuller described his “The Girl with the Crooked Nose” as “extraordinary.”
Hollywood on the Veld
When Movie Mayhem Gripped the City of Gold
In 1913, a secretive American millionaire, who lived on the top floor of the famous Carlton Hotel, had a crazy idea: to make movies in Johannesburg. And not just any movies but the biggest in the world, huge spectacles with elaborate sets, thousands of extras and epic story lines.
Isidore Schlesinger – better known as ‘IW’ – built a studio on a farm called Killarney, where he set out to challenge a place in America that was in its infancy: Hollywood.
The glamour, gossip and high drama of IW’s studio fit perfectly into a city experiencing an intoxicating golden age. There was as much action on the movie sets as there was on screen: from political intrigue and the clashing of massive egos to public outbursts, fiery judicial inquiries, disaster and death.
Behind this mad enterprise was a maverick, a tycoon, a recluse, a friend of the famed and the connected. IW could have held his own in California but he chose as his base the City of Gold. This is the never-been-told-before story of the rise and fall of the strangest and most unique movie empire ever.
“I loved it.” - Darrell Bristow-Bovey
“A welcome addition to the works of Mark Harris and William Goldman.” - Chris Broodryk
Ted Botha talks about the Hollywood of Africa that rose in 1913 with Mila de Villiers on Spotify
Daisy de Melker
Hiding Among Killers in the City of Gold
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 boom 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; the dashing German hustler; a local Bonnie and Clyde; an innocent student walking in Zoo Lake Park at the wrong time; and a man who escape Death Row to become one of South Africa’s most revered authors.
These interconnected stories are told in the style of a thriller and with riveting, kaleidoscopic detail. In Daisy de Melker, the author 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 named across the world.
‘‘With excellent research, great writing and a whole parade of captivating criminal characters, Botha has created an instant classic. Much more than a fresh look at deadly Daisy, it brings to life a captivating time and place. Totally enthralling. I devoured it.” - Deon Meyer
“… shiny, gutsy, gritty, and utterly electrifying …” - Lauren Beukes
Mongo, Adventures in Trash
On foot or by bicycle, journalist Ted Botha went out on the late-night streets of New York City searching for people who collect what other people throw away – mongo, as it’s called – from pieces of demolished buildings to old computers to jewelry to furniture to plants to old documents to valuable artworks to day-old pastries.
Among the unforgettable characters he met was a former bank employee who had become a street philosopher; a sanitation worker whose art collection gained him media fame after the publication of the book (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OYFCGdltBc); a woman who scoured hard drives for other people’s secrets; a can collector who actually made a living off soda cans; and ‘freegans’ like Flo and Channing who ate food from the street, lived in squats, and followed the sun to the next cruelty-free circus where they could perform.
“Delightfully weird and thought-provoking enough to make you consider panning through garbage for gold. … In essence, Botha is exploring fascinating questions of value. What is trash? How much of our history – be it personal, political, or social – do we put on the curb in plastic bags.” - Entertainment Weekly.
“Ted Botha went in search of the modern day rag-pickers of New York, with the patience and skill only possessed by a globe-trotting and graceful man like himself. ... (This) book gives insight into a fascinating group of New Yorkers many would prefer not to see." - New York Press
“New York is New York and New York is stuff – stuff that tells a story, stuff that leads to more stuff, to trash that is treasure, to trash that is trash. In the company of pickers and grabbers, of certified public sanitarians and uncertified but wildly passionate collectors, Ted Botha, in Mongo, leads us on the Grand Tour – often at night and occasionally through the muck-filled underground – of all our glorious and magical and maybe even mystical crap.” - Robert Sullivan
The Girl with the Crooked Nose
A Tale of Murder, Obsession, and Forensic Artistry
More than thirty murders, nine fugitives, and one obsessed man.
In this thrilling and fascinating account of Frank Bender and his work, readers will be drawn into the cases that he solved - The Girl with Hope, The Man in the Cornfield, The Girl in the Steamer Trunk – as well as the intricacies of a unique art, the colorful characters he encountered, and the personal cost of his strange obsession.
Bender reconstructs the faces of the missing and the dead based in part on forensic science, and in part on deep intuition, and an uncanny ability to discern not only a missing face but also the personality behind it. In between studio work, he does his own detective work, joining the police, the FBI, and the Texas Marshalls in a way few civilians get to do.
His skills led to the solving of many murders and other serious crimes, and gave faces to the victims, including in the infamous case of the feminicidios – in which hundreds of murdered women were found outside of Juárez, Mexico.
With a conclusion as shocking as its story is gripping Ted Botha’s The Girl with the Crooked Nose will haunt you long after the last page is turned.
“A compelling glimpse into a gruesome profession.” - Simon Winchester
“A crackling account of a quirky, maverick forensics artist … Even the most savvy true-crime reader will not be able to resist the author’s insightful storytelling.” - Publishers Weekly
“Botha has written an extraordinary and timely book. Partly the portrait of an impassioned man, partly a true-crime story, partly the heartbreaking tale of the murder women of Juárez, this is also the true story of how, at heart, life’s most important work has nothing to do with making money and everything to do with making a difference.” - Alexandra Fuller
Flat/White
The Strange Tale of a New Immigrant in an Old Building and Things Going Badly
When the journalist Ted Botha moved from South Africa to New York, it was to broaden his horizons. But soon he found himself focusing on just one thing – a crazy building.
To start with, luck was on his side. He landed a job at a hip new magazine, and then found a cheap rental in an old tenement in Harlem. When it came up for sale, he couldn’t believe the price. Several blocks away, apartments were selling for $1million or more, but his was priced at a fraction of that – $10,000.
Then Botha’s luck ran out. A chance to fix up the dilapidated building laid bare a world of chaos, lies, suspicion, hate, drug dealers, detective work, police raids and death threats. In what had previously felt like a happy, harmonious area, racism reared its ugly head, and Botha’s white South Africanness suddenly became a liability. Things got worse daily, and he wondered if he could ever survive the anarchy inside his building.
In equal parts memoir, comedy and tragedy – not to mention a travelogue into the backstreets of New York – Flat/White brings to life a cast of characters and a strange, funny, and heart-moving story of a city few people get to see.
“Botha’s book describes a New York that exists way beyond the usual tourist haunts. An acute observer with an eye for the illuminating social detail, his rueful account of his attempts to negotiate the obstacles and fathom foreign ways is consistently amusing and occasionally profound.” - Natal Witness
“A beautiful, heartfelt memoir of life in a hidden city.” - Douglas Rogers
“This book is something of a love story, with rats. I enjoyed it hugely.” - Editor’s Choice, The Argus
The Animal Lover
Best-selling author Ted Botha’s first novel has been praised as a mixture of Evelyn Waugh and William Boyd that “blends sharp wit and satire” and “takes you on “a thrilling wild escapade” through modern-day and wartime Africa.
A madcap chase through today’s urban jungle in search of a priceless trophy gives way to a love story set in a mysteriously magical plantation in the real jungle of World War 2. As Upton Magna reads the 1940 diary of the dashing engineer Hercule, he notices eerie similarities between himself and the Frenchman. Even the two enigmatic women they are pursuing, Ella Bazaar and Sylvie, look and behave the same. Yet the only apparent connection between the four is an okapi, and their separate attempts to find the rare animal lead them all to a cataclysmic showdown.
Part mystery, part romance ,with a lot of adventure as it crisscrosses the globe, The Animal Lover is reminiscent of Water for Elephants and The Life of Pi, a romp of a journey in time that will keep you guessing right up to the heart-lifting end.
“In a style reminiscent of Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene and William Boyd, Botha’s narrative blends sharp wit and satire… The Animal Lover is a thrilling escapade that will keep readers guessing … until its explosive ending.” - Business Day
“A wild, hilarious, utterly engaging adventure that traverses continents and timelines, transporting readers from modern to colonial Africa and back again, with stops in London, Manila and Mexico City…Through the captivating dialogue and interactions of his wonderful cast of characters, he reveals much about human folly and vanity.” - Monique Verduyn
Apartheid in my Rucksack
The plan was ambitious and crazy: to catch trains and any other transport from Johannesburg through to Cairo. But there was one problem: it was the final years of apartheid, the world was crashing in on South Africa, and a white man from Johannesburg traveling in Africa was not a good idea. Journalist Ted Botha, tired of seeing his country isolated and in freefall, had a Canadian passport through his mother and a desire to see his continent. He hoped that would conceal his identity as he traveled into Zimbabwe and Zambia and then on the train to Dar es Salaam. But he was soon unmasked, branded a Prohibited Immigrant, and his travel plans were thrown into disarray – and his life too.
‘Funny, witty, caustic, enormously readable.’ - Jenny Crwys-Williams