Recipes for Love and Murder, by Sally Andrew

Tannie Maria must transform her cooking column to an advice for the lovelorn column in order to keep her job at the Klein Karoo Gazette.  Since she knows about a lot about cooking, but next to nothing about love, she begins a recipes for the lovelorn column.  Plus she and the paper's crack reporter have a mystery to solve. Very charming series.

The Fallen, by Jassy Mackenzie

Mackenzie has written another amazing book.  Jade de Jong and David Patel are vacationing badly at a beautiful beach resort when they become involved in a murder and environmental sabotage, and Jade discovers a mystery she was never even aware of about her mother's death.  Naisha, Patel's wife is not very nice, and Robbie, Jade's former partner in questionable activities is pretty intriguing. Mackenzie tells some new things about South Africa: Johannesburg does not define South Africa; South Africans help people in need without pause in a way that wouldn't often happen in the US these days; race sits openly, bluntly on the table at all times; and in all of Africa, incredible natural beauty sits side by side with the potential for swift, inexplicable, brutal death.

Those Who Love Night, by Wessel Ebersohn

Abigail Bakula is given a six-month leave as the South Africa Dept. of Justice is being reorganized, so she has the time to look into the disappearance of her cousin Tony in Zimbabwe.  She ends up taking prison psychologist Yudel Gordon and his wife Rosa as back-up.   Zimbabwe is presented as a casually brutal place where much of the population is starving and nearly everyone has been touched by violence.  Abigail's relationships with her on-the-brink-of-philandering husband, Robert, and with the intensely male and charismatic Central Intelligence Organization director, Jonas Chumga, didn't ring true to me.

Stolen Lives, by Jassy Mackenzie

There are so many things to like about this book.  PI Jade de Jong is a great character, and Superintendent David Patel is a wonderful moral counterpoint.  Bringing in the British detectives was interesting as well, though I guess it should have clued me into the fact that Jade's bodyguard gig and the police's human trafficking investigation might have something to do with each other.  Duh.  South Africa still ranks low in my vacation destinations thanks to Mackenzie.

Random Violence, by Jassy Mackenzie

Oh my, when women writers decide to embrace violent story telling, beware.  Mackenzie's scenes of murder and mayhem are exceptionally grizzly.  I like the main characters quite a bit, Jade de Jong, a private investigator in South Africa, and David Patel, a police detective, who partners with her.  Does that really happen in South Africa?  In this story, Jade is brought in to help investigate what seems like a car jacking gone wrong that ends in the death of a South African women outside of her gated home.  Turns out it's a much bigger story than one violent death.  Stolen Lives, the next book in the series, comes out this month.

The October Killings, by Wessel Ebersohn

This is a wild ride of a read.  Set in contemporary South Africa, the main protagonists are Abigail Bukulu, a rising star in the Department of Justice, and Yudel Gordon, prison psychiatrist.  They are racing against the clock to save Leon Lourens, who seems to have been kidnapped by the same person who has killed all of the members of a pro-apartheid cross-border raiding party on the anniversary of their last lethal raid.  Ebersohn provides a description of post-apartheid South Africa that is grim and perhaps despairing.  Abigail and Yudel are great characters, and the killer is one of the most chilling characters created.