Wilbur Smith was born in Central Africa in 1933. He was educated at Michaelhouse and Rhodes University. He became a full-time writer in 1964 after the successful publication of When the Lion Feeds, and has since written over thirty novels, all meticulously researched on his numerous expeditions worldwide. His books are now translated into twenty-six languages. Tim Pigott-Smith is highly respected for his work on stage and screen and is particularly well known for his role in the television series, The Jewel of the Crown. He had worked extensively in theatre for the Bristol Old Vic, the RSC and on Broadway in The Iceman Cometh. His film credits include Remains of the Day, Chain Reaction , Bloody Sunday, Alexander, Escape to Victory and Dead Man's Folly. His many television credits include North and South and The Vice.
In his latest novel of Africa, Smith ( The Diamond Hunters ) sets a fast-paced melodrama of greed and political corruption against the stunning, indisputably commanding backdrop of a rain forest. Acclaimed documentary filmmaker and African ecologist Daniel Armstrong vows revenge after a gang of poachers steals a huge cache of South African government-protected ivory, in the process brutally killing Chief Warden Johnny Nzou, Armstrong's childhood friend, and his family. Tracing the smuggling operation to its highest source, Armstrong comes up against a sadistic Chinese diplomat and his profoundly wealthy clan, an unscrupulous entrepreneur expatriate from India, a knighted British tycoon, assorted thugs and a torture-crazed leopard guarding a warehouse. Armstrong agrees to film a PR piece for a tyrant who has just taken over a small African nation and, with money supplied by Armstrong's enemies, is despoiling the rain forest and enslaving members of certain tribes. Some romance, more sex, lots of bloody fighting and international intrigues, all carried out by deftly directed larger-than-life cardboard characters, will surely please Smith's fans and other action-addicted readers. (Feb.)
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