Publications

Publications 2

CRIME FICTION

BY MIKE NICOL

The Bishop Series
Payback

Payback

Author:
Series: The Bishop Series, Book 1
Genre: Crime Novels
Tags: Crime, Dutch, English, Fiction, French, German

Across the city bombs are blowing out nightclubs where drugs go down faster than drinks. Working the scene are slick American dealers trading crack for arms. And arms for blood diamonds. The thin shield between Cape Town's streets and the easy luxury of the famous and the rich is a protection company called Complete Security. But Mace Bishop and his partner Pylon Buso are taking strain. For the one-time gunrunners, now in the muscle business keeping the beautiful people safe, the past has a long and dangerous reach. So does the present. It's payback time.

Also available in the UK from Old Street Publishing, in German from btb Verlag, in French from J'aiLu and Dutch from De Geus.

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Killer Country

Killer Country

Author:
Series: The Bishop Series, Book 2
Genre: Crime Novels
Tags: Crime, Dutch, English, Fiction, French, German

It's the end of a toxic summer in Cape Town. Obed Chocho, businessman, property developer, arrivista, is about to get out of prison on parole. The man who put him away is Judge Telman Visser. The judge thinks he needs the security services of Mace Bishop and Pylon Buso but he's playing a dangerous double bluff and they're his marks. Enter Sheemina February with an agenda all her own. Top of her tick-list is Mace Bishop. The second part of the Revenge Trilogy cracks open a world of conspiracies and paranoia, corruption and greed as the new elites get their hands on the spoils.

Available in the UK from Old Street Publishing, in German from btb Verlag, in French from J'aiLu and Dutch from De Geus

 

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Black Heart

Black Heart

Author:
Series: The Bishop Series, Book 3
Genre: Crime Novels
Tags: Crime, Dutch, English, Fiction, French, German

It's showdown for Sheemina February in her vendetta against security operative Mace Bishop. And a frazzled Mace Bishop is walking straight into the face-off. Problem is his partner Pylon Buso's taken a bullet and a foreigner under their protection's been kidnapped. Bad to worse, the secret service want Mace to steal the weapons system of his only other client. Mace is in the kill zone. In the final part of the Revenge Trilogy the hidden hand of Sheemina February is everwhere. Her finger tight on the trigger.

Available in the UK from Old Street Publishing, in German from btb Verlag, French from J'aiLu, and Dutch from De Geus

 

 

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Power Play

Power Play

Krista Bishop runs a security agency, for women only. Until she gets a call she can't refuse from the government spooks: guard two high-profile Chinese businessmen. What Krista isn't told is that the Chinese are mopping up the richly rewarding abalone poaching business. They want it all, from shore to plate. A takeover that will kick three Cape Town ganglords - known as the Untouchables - out of business and destroy their luxury lifestyles. Abalone means power, money, drugs, guns. No longer untouchable, gang boss Titus Anders fears for the life of his daughter and calls in Krista Bishop to protect her from the madness as a gang war ignites. Krista is the best. She's young, tough and a long way from the violence of the streets. Or is she? The war is everywhere. Right in her own backyard. And there is a secret agent waiting for her, with a gun in his hand...

Also available in the UK from Old Street Publishing, from Umuzi in Afrikaans under the title Woes; in German from btb Verlag, French from Editions du Seuil and Dutch from De Geus

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The Fish and Vicki Series
Of Cops & Robbers

Of Cops & Robbers

Dawn light on the mountains, a two metre swell coming off False Bay. PI Fish Pescado - lithe, blond-haired, six-pack - is surfing. To Fish this is paradise. Except, he has no work, and a diminishing bank balance. Until a young surfer paddles up: 'Hey, Fish, there's a pretty chick looking for you.' The pretty chick is Vicki Kahn, poker addict by night, lawyer by day. She's bright, sharp, lovely. The best. And she's got a job for him: find the murderous bastard who wiped out a bystander at an illegal drag race. If only it were that easy. Thing is that the drag racer has connections high up. Really high up, right to the police commissioner. Thing is the police commissioner has his eye on Vicki Kahn. Thing is the police commissioner has a pasty, a nasty past. A past that has something to do with hit squads, assassinations, rhino horns and the kind of information that no one wants uncovered. The kind of information that involves lots of money, gold bullion in fact. The commissioner's also got a taste for the lush life. A taste that is ruthless, savage. Before long, Fish and Vicki can't tell who's a cop and who's a robber. Or who's gunning for them.

Also available in English from Old Street Publishing in the UK, in Afrikaans from Umuzi as Dieners en Donners; in German from btb Verlag, in French from Editions du Seuil and Dutch from De Geus

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Agents of the State

Agents of the State

Bring in the child trafficker. That's Agent Vicki Kahn's assignment, her first foreign mission for the State Security Agency. That the child trafficker is a top fashion model with connections to the president's son is an added complication. Especially when Vicki watches as the model's limp body is wheeled away at Schiphol airport. Then, in Berlin, she finds her contact dead on the kitchen floor, shot in the head. Get out, Vicki's instincts tell her. Get out now. Vicki's lover, PI Fish Pescado, is working another case. Find out who shot my husband, is his brief. The husband: a rebel colonel from the Central African Republic taken down in a spray of bullets on the steps of St George's Cathedral. As Fish digs he comes up against a local connection: none other than the South African president. Drop the case, he's warned. Go surfing. And take your girlfriend Vicki Kahn with you before it's too late. Secrets, conspiracies, vested interests, commie plots. Vicki and Fish are caught int he mix, with only one way out.

Also available from in the UK from Old Street Publishing, from Umuzi in Afrikaans as Staatsrotte; in German from btb Verlag and French from Gallimard

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Sleeper

Sleeper

First there is the killing of the minister of energy. Then the cop investigating the murder commits suicide. Fearing a conspiracy, the minister's lover hires PI Fish Pescado to find the killer. Then she goes missing. And Fish is being stonewalled by the cops because ... in the dark shadows of Cape Town there's another game being played out. A complex one involving Iranian agents, the theft of highly enriched uranium, and the kidnapping of a top scientist. Ex-spy Vicki Kahn is bribed by her former handler to track the terrorists. The hunt is deadly and nothing is what it seems. A sleeper has been awoken. ISIS is involved. So is the CIA. There is chatter of a dirty bomb headed for Europe. And Vicki is so lost in those constantly changing shadows that even her surfer-boy Fish can't find her.

Also available in German from btb Verlag and coming next year in French from Gallimard.

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The Rabbit Hole

The Rabbit Hole

Published in South Africa by Umuzi in February 2021, and then later in the year by btb Verlag in Germany, and in 2022 by Gallimard in France

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Hammerman – A Walking Shadow

Hammerman – A Walking Shadow

Children find a body in the Strandfontein sand dunes. A populist politician is gunned down outside parliament. His number two executed in bed with a high-class escort. A cabinet minister shot leaving a security estate. A cop assassinated in his car. Another in his beach house. And it all ties back to the murder of Swedish prime minister Olof Palme in 1986 - as private investigator Fish Pescado is about to discover. He's on the case, hunting a rogue agent through industrial estates, retirement homes, a farm in the Moordenaars Karoo. He's also convinced someone's out to kill his lover Vicki Kahn, lying in a coma in a hospital. But he can't watch over her all the time. Fish and Vicki are about to get hit by history. And history can be brutal, bloody and deadly.

 

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