Death in the Long Shadows, by Francis M. Flavin

In Death in the Long Shadows, author Francis Flavin offers a spellbinding fictional homage to Ernest Hemingway and Peter Hathaway Capstick, two icons of the classical safari saga. In the tenor of Hemingway’s The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Capstick’s Death in the Long Grass, Flavin draws the reader ever deeper into the spell of the African wild and the stark ethos of dangerous game hunting.

Coloradan Paul Thayer embarks on a perilous quest for the Cape buffalo—known in safari circles as “black death.” Along the way, he must confront not only his fear of failure and mortality but also the tangled dynamics of the safari camp. The high moral standards of Thayer and his professional hunter, Johan, clash with the ego of an unscrupulous client, “the killer,” and his licentious trophy wife.

The spell of Africa—at once dark and beautiful—tightens around the hunting party, drawing them through perilous encounters with the black death and inexorably toward a dangerous, uncertain climax.