Finished a book by Wilbur Smith yesterday. Have rarely had any time to read novels lately and this was a welcome break. The book was titled “The Leopard Hunts in Darkness”. It was a book with the racial and inter-tribal rivalries of Rhodesia/Zimbabwe as the backdrop. A synopsis can be found on Wilbur smith’s website (http://www.wilbursmithbooks.com/books/leopard.html). Although the website has this book listed under his “Ballantynes” series, the only link to a Ballantyne is the central character, Craig Mellow, being a descendent of theirs on his mother’s side.
It was a book in Smith’s general style of writing. I am a big fan of his and just absolutely love his Egyptian novels – River God, The Seventh Scroll and Warlock. Almost all his books are Africa-centric, and this one is no different. However, what put me off was that towards the end, Smith seems to have heavily borrowed from “King Solomon’s Mines”. A search for diamonds, said diamonds being buried with an ancient king’s body, only a witch doctor knowing the location, good guys getting trapped in the cave where the body is, king’s body placed in seated position, - and this was just a tad too much to be a coincidence for me – king’s body placed directly under a water drip and being slowly encased in the calcium deposit!! What was Smith thinking?? Was he so sure that nobody reads the classics these days and so he could get away with it?
Overall, I felt a bit cheated as I was expecting something better… a lot better, in fact. I was thankful that I decided to borrow the book from our university library instead of buying it. This is one Wilbur Smith creation that I will not miss in my collection. But that does not take away from my love of his books. I still like his style and look forward to reading the ones I have missed so far.
