From award-winning journalist Tanya Farber comes an in-depth look into the lives, minds and motivations of women killers in Blood on Her Hands: South Africa’s Most Notorious Female Killers.

About the book

Meet Daisy de Melker, who ‘lovingly’ prepared a flask of strychnine-laced coffee for her son. She is very different from Najwa Petersen, who carefully planned a ‘house robbery’ to eliminate her musician husband. Chané van Heerden placed her victim’s facial skin in the freezer for preservation, yet Phoenix Racing Cloud Theron wished to dispose of her mother’s body before it was even cold. And Dina Rodrigues? She ‘wouldn’t harm a fly’ – but then went and organised a hit on a baby.

Women are not paragons of virtue who cannot commit murder. Nor are they always insane when they do deliberately cause death. And the women with ‘blood on their hands’ are not homogeneous.

In Blood on Her Hands, award-winning journalist Tanya Farber investigates the lives, minds and motivations of some of South Africa’s most notorious female murderers, from the poisonous nurse Daisy de Melker, to the privileged but deeply disturbed Najwa Petersen, to the mysterious Joey Haarhoff, who died before revealing the fate of her victims.

Written in a style lighter than the subject matter might suggest, Blood on Her Hands will keep you reading until late at night.

About the author

Tanya Farber is an experienced journalist currently working at the Sunday Times. She has won international journalism awards (including two Lorenzo Natali Awards from the European Union for Human Rights Journalism and one CNN African Journalism Award), and locally has won Print Feature Writer of the Year at the Vodacom Journalism Awards. Tanya has an MA degree in journalism from Wits University, co-wrote photographer Alf Kumalo’s biography (Alf Kumalo: Through my Lens), and is the author of two resource books on writing and journalism for the Open Society Foundation.

Categories Non-fiction South Africa South African Current Affairs

Tags Blood on Her Hands Blood on Her Hands: South Africa's Most Notorious Female Killers Chané van Heerden Daisy de Melker Dina Rodrigues Joey Haarhoff Jonathan Ball Publishers Najwa Petersen New books New releases Phoenix Racing Cloud Theron Tanya Farber