Blood on the Veld by S.A. McLain is a very well-conceived wildlife thriller. This is apparently the author’s second novel after a successful and award winning debut novel entitled When Red is Blue, which is surely a novel I should find time to read. I feel like I stumbled onto this book while mostly limiting my reading to books on Egypt and Kenya, this one mostly taking place in South Africa. However, a common theme to those books and this one is the incredible poaching of African wildlife that continues to occur, ultimately threatening massive herds of animals.
The protagonist is Christian Bekker who at the age of 17 killed one of the poachers, an act that he claims was in self-defense. However, there were shady things going on in the trial and the judge simply did not accept Bekker’s claim. Given his young age at the time of this event, the judge gave Bekker the choice of a lengthy prison term or permanent banishment from South Africa. He accepted the latter and he moved to London where he was leading a successful life after 20 years. During Bekker’s absence from the land of his birth, his father lost the family property where he worked hard to preserve the lives of African wildlife and to challenge the poachers’ grisly efforts. A major problem was the incredible wealth that could be obtained by poaching, especially elephants and rhinos, and the greed and corruption at all levels of police enforcement and government bureaucrats. When his father allegedly committed suicide and left evidence for his son of the corruption that was behind his loss of the family property, Bekker chose to ignore his banishment and return to Johannesburg. And then, Bekker became the target of the same corrupt forces which had driven him from the country and led to the death of his father.
I love this book. Having visited South Africa long ago, McLain’s descriptions of the beauty of the veld and what it was like to live there brought back stirring memories. Perhaps the level of corruption is hard to fathom, but only a little knowledge of the troubled history of South African makes that issue easier to understand. This book gets my strongest recommendation. Ms. McLain is indeed a gifted writer. She indicates that this book is the first one in a series about Bekker, and I eagerly await the next one.
While this is, as always, about Walt Longmire, the flawed yet capable Wyoming Sheriff, this is a novella adding to Walt's backstory.
Walt and the Navajo Nation (Henry Standing Bear) are fresh out of the Army looking for what's next after their time in Vietnam. Walt takes a security job for an energy/research company way the hell north on Alaska's north coast. With nothing on his plate, Henry ventures up north to visit Walt.
Walt's job, when it comes to security, is pretty calm despite the weather. The research part of the business is a small group doing polar ice research for the government. The schedule has a team heading out from home base to get some ice core samples ahead of a predicted storm. And a storm that far north isn't to be trifled with. A specially outfitted plane is filled up with the needed equipment and survival gear (just in case . . . wink wink) along with a shooter experienced with polar bear behavior, Walt has to go and Henry decides to tag along. Lots of chatter on the flight in about so-called ghost ships. Abandoned ships frozen in the ice that aimlessly drift about as the ice shifts, cracks, or melts only to be refrozen at a new and distant location. One in particular was recently seen in the general area of the team's destination. But the intensity of the storm, it's unlikely to be seen through the blowing snow that reduces vision to multiple of arm length.
The storm comes in faster and more fierce than predicted and they have to land short of their destination (a small research shack). The plane carries a polar-capable snow cat. The pilots hunker down on the plane and the rest board the snow cat and head out . . .
. . . until they encounter a polar bear in their path. A very hungry, very big, and very aggressive polar bear. A bear big enough to topple a snow cat and send the team running for their lives. Their good fortune sends them toward a ghost ship. And while that should provide some shelter, there's evidence that the bear is familiar with the ship. The landscape may be home to the bear, but so is this ship.
What plays out is a cat-mouse game between the bear and the research team. The team is left with limited supplies, ammunition and anything else that might help them ward off the bear. Daylight is sparse so much of the game plays in near total darkness with battery powered lanterns slowing dying out and the team is being stalked on the bear's home turf.
This is the 2nd or 3rd Longmire novella that Johnson has published all of which add to the history of the man who would become a legendary sheriff in Wyoming. The time line is brief, about 36-48 hrs at best with Walt and Henry leading the team's defensive despite being out of their element. It's a suspenseful and absorbing adventure, one that reveals the story behind a talisman Henry wears around his neck into adulthood.
This 2024 release, a 6"x9" book of under 200 pages. Load up the fireplace, put your feet up and read it in a day/weekend. Beats shoveling snow or shivering in the latest polar vortex
East Coast Don
The Cyanide Canary, a true story, is very much akin to the Erin Brockovich story (movie with Julia Roberts in 2000, followed by the book in 2001). The Cyanide Canary was written and published in 2017 by Robert Dugoni and Joseph Hilldorfer. Dugoni is typically a writer of crime novels and murder mysteries. He’s published at least 30 books, and two of those have been reviewed in this blog. Joseph Hilldorfer is a EPA Special Agent who was directly and intimately involved with the investigation and prosecution of Allan Elias, the owner and CEO of Evergreen Resources in Soda Springs, Idaho.
The story is about the nearly fatal exposure to cyanide gas by 20-year-old laborer Scott Dominguez, and the denial of responsibility for the accident by Elias. The accident occurred in August 1996, and through delay tactics, the matter did not quickly come to trial, and even after Elias was found guilty of four counts of mismanagement of the toxic properties that his company managed (or mismanaged) in 1999, Mr. Elias was not sentenced for another year. Without the dedication of Special Agent Hilldorfer and his colleages at the EPA, as well as those at the Department of Justice, it is improbable that Mr. Dominguez would have ever received anything for the harm that was caused to him. Dominguez had suffered irreparable and severe brain damage and required round the clock care which obviously stressed his family and caused an end to the relationship with the woman who he planned to marry. Ultimately, Elias was ordered to pay $6 million for the injury to his employee and to clean up the contaminated work site. Although Elias was still in jail in 2017 when the book was published, Mr. Dominguez had yet to receive a penny for his injuries and the worksite had not been cleaned up.
The book addressed the lack of power of the EPA to actually prosecute executives who were clearly behind such tragedies, and the various legal techniques that were used to avoid punishment. This was a great book. Although it took the reader through many details of the events of the injuries and the defense tactics of the lawyers on behalf of Mr. Elias, it none the less was a page turner. Dugoni and Hilldorfer left the reader with the idea that the general public may never be safe from such dastardly deeds by men who value the mighty dollar over everything else.
As I continue my focus on African literature and history, I listened to an audiobook which was first published in 1885. It’s a famous adventure novel written by H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon’s Mines. The adventure has to do with the search for the diamond mines of King Solomon, and it requires an overland trip of 1,000 miles from Durban, South Africa, the last 300 miles being done on foot. There are three white men and one quite regal native. One of the Englishmen joined the group in his effort to locate his brother who had headed for his own African adventure some years before. The men are all well-seasoned African travelers, and in the course of this trip, they encounter many African wild animals, jungles, and a desert. They interact with many different tribes along the way. They only knew an approximate location of the mines, and upon arriving in the area, they are faced with climbing very high mountains in search of their goal. This remarkable story was told in narrative form in first person by the protagonist, Allan Quatermain.
The thrill of this book is in the details, such as an elephant hunt, other animal encounters, the management of their lack of supplies, becoming involved with warring native tribes, becoming desperate for water as they crossed the desert, and finally getting trapped in the mine where they had found an immense wealth of diamonds, gold, and ivory.
The story itself is so compelling that there have been multiple movies made about it. Perhaps the best known is a 1985 movie with Richard Chamberlain and Sharon Stone. That movie seemed to be an attempt to compete with the Indiana Jones franchise of five films, but really, it was terrible. The first King Solomon’s Mines moving was in 1937 with Paul Robeson, the second in 1950 with Deborah Kerr, and the 1985 movie was the third. Patrick Swayze starred in a 2004 mini series on television, and there was a 2006 tv movie entitled The Librarian: Return to King Solomon’s Mine. That one includes comedians Bob Newhart and Jane Curtain. I’ve not seen the two earliest movies, but I’m assuming each of these attempts had the same difficulty. The story told in the novel is so grand and captivating that the movies have little chance to capture the adventure as it was presented by the author. The book itself was fabulous.
The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook, is one of the best nonfiction books that I’ve ever read. Admittedly I am entranced by sea adventures, especially those that occurred during the Age of Exploration. It was four years from the time Captain Cook left England on July 12, 1776 until the ship returned to England on October 4, 1780 without him. He was killed in Hawaii on February 14, 1779. Some years ago, I had the chance to swim in the stunningly beautiful bay where he died. The New York Times opined that this was one of the 10 best books published during 2024.
After two long voyages, Cook was initially not intending to be a part of England’s next exploration in the Pacific. During the late 18th century, explorers were still uncovering the fabled northwest passage, but given so many failures to find it from the Atlantic, the new plan was to approach the alleged passage from the Pacific side. Charles Clerke was expected to lead the voyage. He had been with Cook before and he was eager to be the head of the next voyage, but at the last minute, Cook’s principal sponsors including the Earl of Sandwich, seduced him into taking command. Once again, Clerke was to be the second in command and captain of the HMS Discovery, while Cook sailed in the HMS Resolution.
The author took the reader through the trip to Tahiti where they returned a Polynesian named Mai to his home after he had traveled with Cook on his second voyage. Mai was a most interesting man who quickly adapted to life in England and was really the darling of the upper class who treated him with all sorts of favors. On the way back to Tahiti, Cook stopped in Cape Town before the hazardous sailing from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Horn. After rounding the cape, they touched down for repairs in Tasmania, and then they took Mai to Tahiti. Rather than being seen as a hero who could teach them much about the world he had seen, rather than being feted as he had by the English aristocracy, Mai was noted to be a commoner in the Tahitian culture who had forgotten his own humble origins. He failed to make a smooth transition back to his own homeland.
As Cook turned north to look for the passageway to the Atlantic, he literally stumbled into Hawaiin islands that had not been visited for many years and was unknown to the western world. He was revered as a god by the Hawaiians. When his ship had been repaired for more rigorous travel, he sailed to Alaska but failed to find the passage that he was looking for. Prior to giving it another go, with winter coming, he faced having run out of time. He chose to return to Hawaii for the winter months in order to give his exploration another chance to succeed. However, rather than landing on Maui or Kauai, he chose to go to the big island where he remained for the winter months. However, as the Resolution and Discovery were preparing to leave again in late 1778, the Hawaiians discovered that Cook and his men were really not gods. After there were substantial disagreements between Cook and the Hawaiians, a battle broke out in which Cook was killed. It was Clerke who then became the leader of the expedition, but after only a short while, he died from tuberculosis, a disease he had contracted early in the voyage.
There were other well trained officers to see the expedition back to England, but most interesting was the presence of William Blythe who later was captain on the HMS Bounty when a world-famous mutiny occurred. The author talked about the apparent deterioration of Cook which was apparent in his harsh treatment of the crew which was much different than during his earlier voyages. The interplay between Cook and his officers, as well as the crew and the many natives they encountered was all discussed by the author.
I don’t think this review does justice to the depth of the author’s understanding and descriptions of both the travel adventures and the various social interactions. I’m in agreement with the NY Times about the importance and quality of Sides’ writing. Give this book a chance, even if you usually don’t read nonfiction. You won’t be disappointed.
