Synopses & Reviews
In 1898, two hauntingly elusive maneless lions killed and ate 140 workers who were building a railroad bridge over the Tsavo River in Kenya. These seemingly invincible man-eaters literally stopped the British Empire in its tracks during their year-long reign of terror. But the bloody exploits of these animals, immortalized in John Pattersons 1907 book, The Man-Eaters of Tsavo, and two feature films, Bwana Devil in 1952 and The Ghost and the Darkness in 1996, are only part of the story.
Caputos Ghosts of Tsavo is a search for truth, exploring both how these near-mythical maneless beasts became man-eaters and the more unsettling proposition: Do they represent a feline missing link between modern lions and the prehistoric lions that preyed on our Pleistocene ancestors. Setting out over the forbidding plains of Kenyas Tsavo National Park, Caputo and his small corps of discoverya photographer and a few armed rangers from the Kenya Park Servicefollow two eminent scientists from the University of Minnesota determined to unlock the secrets of Africas most efficient killers.
Suffused with the raw beauty and primitive danger of Tsavos wild landscape, Ghosts of Tsavo is a totally absorbing adventure narrative by an author justly regarded as among the finest writers of his generation.
Synopsis
1898, Tsavo River Kenya, the British Empire has employed 140 workers to build a railroad bridge. The bridge's construction comes to a violent halt when two maneless lions devour all 140 workers in a savage feeding frenzy that would make headlines›and history—all over the world. Caputo's Ghosts of Tsavo is a new quest for truth about the origins of these near-mythical animals and how they became predators of human flesh.