Jade de Jong

When PI Jade de Jong invites Superintendent David Patel on a scuba diving holiday in St. Lucia, she hopes the time away will rebuild their conflicted relationship. Jade's dreams are soon shattered when David calls off their affair, forcing her into the arms of environmentalist Craig Niewoudt. But the next morning, romantic issues are put aside when a scuba diving instructor, Amanda Bolton, is found brutally stabbed to death. Amanda is a most unlikely candidate for murder-a quiet and intelligent woman who until a few months ago pursued a high-powered career as an air traffic controller. She had few acquaintances and no lovers. The only loose end is a postcard in her room from Jo'burg-based Themba Msamaya, asking how she is doing "after 813 and the Fallen." Jade and David put their differences aside and start the deadly hunt.

At first, the case appears to be one of simple misadventure. Sonet van Rensburg, a base jumper, falls to her death while attempting to parachute off a newly built sixty-five-story Sandton skyscraper. But Sonet's jumping partner Chris Theron insists that this was no accident, and he hires private investigator Jade de Jong to uncover the truth. Glad of the distraction from her conflicted and seemingly doomed relationship with police superintendent David Patel, Jade immerses herself in the case. She discovers that Sonet worked for a charity that helped impoverished communities become self-supporting farming units. Sonet's ex-husband, though, has nothing good to say about his wife or the work she has done. He tells Jade that Sonet's efforts were a useless waste of money and that the farming projects were not sustainable. When Jade travels out to the Siyabonga community's farm in Limpopo, hoping to prove him wrong, she finds it not just abandoned but razed to the ground. Digging deeper for answers about where the residents went and why they left their fertile valley, Jade finds out that one man died from a terminal illness. Then, to her concern, she learns about more sicknesses and more deaths—a fatal but unknown disease that swept through the entire community. Jade then discovers that Sonet's sister Zelda, a journalist, was investigating this mystery too. Zelda had discovered that one woman and her son had survived the plague and had left the area, and she was doing her best to track that woman down so she could hear her story. But now Zelda is missing, and Jade will have to race against time in order to find her. A deadly harvest has been gathered in, and the only person who knows the real truth about it has been forced to become collateral in its trade.

Relentless South African private investigator Jade de Jong tracks a saboteur in a race to prevent a nuclear disaster in Jassy Mackenzie's new, pulse-pounding thriller. Despite her checkered history with law enforcement, Johannesburg private investigator Jade de Jong is attempting to operate on the right side of the law, confining herself to low-profile cases. But her remarkably attractive new employer, Ryan Gillespie, has tasked her with finding a missing security official after a break-in at his nuclear energy plant. The target of her search is Carlos Botha, a skilled operative and a threat to national security. Jade traces Botha to a run-down suburb, but discovers she's not the only one looking for him. Someone has put a hit out on Botha, and Jade forms an unlikely alliance with her mark in order to learn more. But how long can she keep up the facade of friendship before he realizes she's been hired to track him?

A seemingly simple bodyguard job plunges Jade de Jong into the world of strip joints, sex workers, and human trafficking. When wealthy Pamela Jordaan hires PI Jade de Jong as a bodyguard after her husband Terence disappears, Jade thinks keeping an eye on this anxious wife will be an easy way to earn some cash. But when a determined shooter nearly kills them both and Jade finds Terence horrifically tortured and barely alive, she realizes that she has been drawn into a wicked game. At the same time, her relationship with police superintendent David Patel is on the rocks, and things only get more complicated when his son is kidnapped and his wife is blackmailed. It soon becomes clear that the kidnapping and the attempted killings of Pamela and her husband are tied to a human trafficking ring that stretches from Johannesburg to London.

In Johannesburg, prosperous whites live behind gates; when they exit their cars to open the gates, carjackings are common. But seldom is the victim killed, much less shot twice, like Annette Botha. And now, Piet Botha, the husband of the wealthy woman, is the primary suspect in his wife's murder. PI Jade de Jong fled South Africa ten years ago after her father was killed. Now back in town, she offers to help her father's former assistant, Superintendent David Patel, with his investigation of this case. Under apartheid, Patel, of Indian descent, could never have attained his present position. But he is feeling pressure from his “old line” boss with respect to this investigation and fears lingering prejudice is at work. As Jade probes into this and other recent carjacking cases, a pattern begins to emerge—a pattern that goes back to her father's murder and involves a vast and intricate series of crimes for profit.