JENNIFER PLATT | Who needs foreign underworlds when we’ve got Joburg?

I am a proud Joburger. Born and bred in this city of mine dumps, highways and one large, man-made forest. It’s in my iron-deficient blood.

I love the distinctive smell of the different areas. Where I come from in the west of the city, it’s the sweetly bitter mine dust, the freshness of eucalyptus trees surrounding the so-called dams and the weirdly fragrant gasoline undertones, most probably wafting from factories and mines built deliberately around those suburbs.

Johannesburg remained, for a good part of my life, somewhat of a mystery to me, especially not being allowed to go into certain areas when I was younger. But now living, partying, dining and working in those once-barred ’burbs is quite a discombobulated feeling. After 1994, touring the city became a favourite pastime.

I thought I knew Joburg deep down, its erratic pulse and dangerous nature. I have been east, west, south (for my sins) and worked in and walked on the streets of the inner city. Being the race I am, people have asked me (ad nauseam), “Are you from Cape Town or Durban?”. Trying to decipher me the South African way.

I was always proud to say I was born and bred in Johannesburg. The City of Gold, of opportunity, of “wys mense”, of familiarity and family.

I thought I knew the streets and history. Since I was young, we have taken out-of-town relatives to what I thought were the tourist highlights (but they were really where we were allowed to go): Wemmer Pan, Santarama Miniland in Rosettenville, the top of the Carlton Centre, Florida Dam and Gold Reef City.

Lately we've been hopping on and off the Red Bus, numerous walking, eating and book tours, which are, if not enriching, very much eye-opening. I eventually walked through the golden doors of the Rand Club and had a meal there, eating off once-forbidden crockery.

It’s a wonderful life here and I try not to let load-shedding, potholes, politicians, crime and all the noise cloud that. I try.

So it was astounding to pick up Daisy de Melker: Hiding Among Killers in the City of Gold (Jonathan Ball Publishers) by Ted Botha. I vaguely knew the story of De Melker. It was always whispered about in hushed tones as if it was a horror story told around the campfire. I never knew the specifics of who she was and what she did — all I heard was that she was a scary-looking woman who killed her husbands.

Botha skilfully and filmically creates a ragtime Joburg, one that is a refuge for grifters, opportunists, thieves, conmen and especially murderers trying to make a living and conceal themselves from the law. It's the 1920s and 1930s, and in the shadows of the streets live the criminals among us. De Melker being one of them.

Woven between the tales of her dead fiancé, dead children and dead husbands, we meet The Fosters gang, whose members rob banks with their getaway motorbike and kill police; fraudster Andrew Gibson, who pretends to be a doctor whenever he manages to get out of prison; Dorothea Kraft, who convinces a few men to kill a man who bought her farm; lawyer Harry Morris, who outshines Perry Mason and should be written in our annals; and the writers and journalists who wrote about the De Melker case, including Herman Charles Bosman.

Botha's research is outstanding and there are so many delightful nuggets and stories that are jaw-dropping.

We don’t need to read the history of places like Chicago, Boston, New York or London to be engrossed in the affairs of yesteryear's underbelly. It’s always happened here, in Joburg. Still is.