Photo credit: Joanne Olivier
Sally Andrew
Agent: Isobel Dixon
Assistant: Sian Ellis-Martin
Biography: Sally Andrew divides her time between Muizenberg on the Cape Town coast and a nature reserve near Ladismith in the Klein Karoo, South Africa, where she lives with her artist partner and various wildlife (including a giant eland and a secretive leopard). Sally has published a number of non-fiction books on adult and environmental education.
The latest instalment of the Tannie Maria series is WILD THINGS NEVER DIE, which Penguin Random House South Africa was published in May 2026.
Her first novel, RECIPES FOR LOVE & MURDER: A Tannie Maria Mystery was a Kirkus Best Book of 2015 (also receiving a starred review), A Wall Street Journal Best Mystery Book 2015, The Bookseller Fiction editor’s Choice 2015, a Good Housekeeping Book of the Month and a recipient of a Washington Post Blue Flag. It was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Literary Award in 2016, won the Nielsen Booksellers Choice Best Book of the Year in 2016, and was selected as one of their four best books from the past 10 years in 2026. It was recently adapted for television and is available to stream on on Acorn TV in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand, and Latin America. The television show has been nominated and shortlisted for various international awards, and in 2026 received awards from the Directors Guild of South Africa for best actress (Maria Doyle Kennedy) best actor (Tony Kgoroge) and best directors (Karen Jeynes and Jozua Malherbe).
DEATH ON THE LIMPOPO (Tannie Maria book no.3) was shortlisted for the Nielsen Booksellers Best Fiction Book of the Year, while THE MILK TART MURDERS (Tannie Maria book no.4) won the same award in 2022. RECIPES TO LIVE FOR (a Tannie Maria cookbook) won the international Gourmand Best in the World award for the category of Acknowledgments in 2025, and came second in the Regional category. It was also the winner of the Gourmand Best of the Best award in its category.
‘If you want a vivid, amusing and immensely enjoyable read about detection (and cooking) in an intriguing part of southern Africa, then this is the book for you. A triumph.’ – Alexander McCall Smith
‘Take a pinch of Alexander McCall Smith, a dash of Diane Mott Davidson, and add a smidge of the wild veld and you’ll get a taste for this lekker story (that’s “delicious” in Afrikaans). While the tone is heartfelt, Andrew doesn’t shy away from the realities of spousal abuse or the shadow of South Africa’s tumultuous history. With a fascinating setting, engaging characters, and a full complement of drool-worthy recipes, this is sure to leave readers craving more.’ – Library Journal, starred review
‘A delightful debut, tender and funny. The mystery takes on the worldwide problem of abused women while revealing both the beauties and problems of South Africa. And the recipes will make you want to drop everything and start cooking.’ – Kirkus, starred review
Follow Sally on X (previously Twitter).
WILD THINGS NEVER DIE
Crime, 417 pages, Umuzi, May 2026
Tannie Maria is wrestling with a fear of the dark and Henrietta has PTSD. But this doesn’t stop the intrepid agony aunt – and her hen – from going undercover with Maria’s fiancé, Detective Henk Kannemeyer, to the Karoo Wilderness Reserve. Their mission: save the vetplantjies! At the luxury game lodge, they spy on guests and support the Anti-Poaching Unit in a battle against dangerous gangsters. Jessie attends the Succulent Symposium, which is tackling the poaching problem internationally.
Then, there is a murder ...
Our favourite Ladismith sleuths engage with some colourful suspects, including a barefoot artist, a botanist cowboy, a singing gardener, and a sangoma. Between solving murders, writing agony-aunt letters, eating spectacular food, and having spiritual epiphanies, Maria and Henk get fashion tips from a couturier and his Baroness.
But fashion is forgotten when their own lives are at stake.
RECIPES TO LIVE FOR
Cookery, 153 pages
Penguin Random House South Africa, May 2024
Tannie Maria, everyone’s favourite amateur detective and agony aunt, has finally heeded the call of her fans countrywide to produce her very first cookbook. RECIPES TO LIVE FOR features recipes from Sally Andrews’ first four murder mystery novels, as well as some tantalising new additions.
Spiced with enjoyable sayings from the four novels, as well as letters written to ‘Tannie Maria’s Love Advice and Recipe Column’, and seasoned with photographs of the food and the beautiful Karoo, RECIPES TO LIVE FOR is as warm and witty as Tannie Maria herself, guaranteed to delight fans and newcomers to the series.
Many of the dishes are slow foods and traditional South African recipes, but there are also quick meals and new inventions, from nachos to spekboom ice cream. Whether you are craving a Karoo lamb pie or a vetkoek with mince, or are lus for a melktert or koeksister, you will find it among Tannie Maria’s gastronomic delights.
THE MILK TART MURDERS
Crime, 408 pages
Umuzi, March 2022
Who knew a Marilyn Monroe movie could kill you? When Oom Frik of Oom Frik’s Fantastiques dies during a vintage movie screening in Ladismith, Tannie Maria and her policeman boyfriend Henk are on the scene. Ja, the old thrift-shop owner had a heart condition, but was there more to his demise? It’s rumoured that among Frik’s junk are valuable treasures, and the grumpy, paranoid old guy frequently altered his will.
When a second body turns up, there’s a clue: a letter addressed to Tannie Maria asking for advice – and a milk tart recipe. Fifty-plus agony-aunt Maria and feisty young journalist Jessie conduct their own treasure hunt and murder investigation. The police are looking for the perpetrator too, but the amateur detectives have unique skills, and Tannie Maria’s food is a powerful incentive to get people to talk.
Maria and Jessie step into deep danger, but all is not doom and gloom. Spring has arrived in the Karoo, and Henk and Maria discuss moving in together, even though his home is full of his late wife’s stuff. Maria knows food has a way of filling the dark spaces, for better or for worse. Perhaps, once the Klein Karoo crime-buster’s work is done, she might follow her own advice and try a healing recipe.
RECIPES FOR LOVE AND MURDER
Crime, 376 pages
Canongate, November 2015
A delicious new mystery series with a lovable, unforgettable heroine. Tannie Maria used to write a recipe column for the Klein Karoo Gazette. Then Head Office decided they wanted an advice column instead, so now she gives advice. In the form of recipes. Because, as she says, she may not know much about love, but food—that’s her life.