If you love Africa hunting books, you have likely read Horned Death by John Burger. This is a classic, well written, exciting, and available. I assumed that if Burger wrote one good book, then the rest of his stuff should be equally good. Not so.

This is a short book that is a collection of stories and essays he wrote of his life in Africa. A few of the stories are about hunting but most are about the native peoples, the culture as he saw it and the political history of the areas he hunted in and lived in. If I could prove it, I would accuse him of creating and embellishing stories I have read that were written by other authors. My problem is that I am not sure who stole from whom.

All in all, this is book that appears to be written by Burger in an effort to capitalize on the fame of his one good book. It is like the major league baseball player that has played out his career and signs one more contract to extract cash from an unsuspecting team via mediocre performance. That is this book.

He apparently went on the lecture circuit at one point and was praised so heavily he felt obligated to write this book. He should not have.

That stories at times remind me of Capstick in his later years - just trying to cobble together something that people will buy. Actually, I believe Capstick was more creative and may have done what he claims. In Burger's case, I am not so sure.

Anyway, my dogcat rating is a solid 2 - and I do not recommend this book unless you have $30 to blow and want to confirm what I have said here. There are better ways to spend you time and money.

I actually paid $50 for this book and would gladly sell it to you for $25 shipped!!!! Please take it our of my library.

Thanks for the heads up. Loved his first book. I just finished Andy Anderson's and Donold Kers books. Recommend both