Hal and Roger Hunt take a break from collecting animals to help warden Mark Crosby wage war against poachers at the Tsavo National Park. If Willard Price was intending to shock his readers with the mind-boggling statistics on annual animal slaughter, he certainly succeeded. I wasn't sure how accurate his calculations were, but if the kind of wholesale poaching he describes was going on in the 60s, it seems impossible that anything would still be alive today. There have been many conservation efforts since, but I suspect much of his data are exaggerated. Readers are bombarded with unpleasant descriptions of the many traps used to torture and kill animals, along with what all their body parts are used for. It's depressing to think that fifty years later, the sordid business continues and is bigger than ever. When the book was written, rhinos were still a common sight in East Africa; now they are very difficult to find.
The story in this installment is not as good as previous books. In addition to the sombre mood, there is a weak antagonist leading the illegal poaching operation who they nickname 'Blackbeard'. There are also some dodgy, suspension of disbelief moments such as Roger taming a wild cheetah by speaking in a gentle manner, and both boys miraculously surviving a plane crash unscathed. Zulu, the pet safari Alsatian, undergoes a sex change from female to male. It seems like a glaring error to make considering that a previous plot point hinged on her being able to nurse leopard cubs. The war against the poachers is resolved hurriedly by the criminals being caught hiding in hollow baobab trees and simply giving up without a fight. In Scooby Doo fashion, Blackbeard is de-bearded by the cheetah and his identity revealed. Not the best book in the series by any stretch.
Rating: 3/5
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