JOBURG ZEN

October 2026
Alex Lago Book 2

Based on true events, Joburg Zen is literary neo-noir that threads golf legend Bobby Locke’s enigmatic rise and fall with Johannesburg’s brutal unravelling in post-apartheid South Africa, from bestselling author Sandro Martini.

Journalist Alex Lago had been slick enough to escape Joburg’s secrets, spies, and violence decades ago.

Now he's drawn back by the lure of his latest project—digging into what really happened to Bobby Locke, the legendary golfer who clawed his way out of Joburg’s grime to find global stardom, then lost it all, vanishing into obscurity in a cottage named Sandwich.

Half a century later, Locke resurfaces in international headlines for an unspeakable act of obsession.

As Lago peels back the layers of Locke’s life and the legacy he left behind, the dangers of his own past begin to close in: a vicious murder buried by political chaos, an apartheid-era cop still hunting truth, and a woman lost to a single night that fractured everything.

From the sun-drenched fairways of the ’50s to the riot-lit streets of the ’90s, Joburg Zen is a razor-sharp and stifling thriller that fuses the city’s savage heart with the harrowing downfall of a family they once called white royalty.