Tony Park: Empty Coast

Exciting adventure set in Namibia
Tony Park is renowned for his adventure stories set in different parts of Africa and can be relied upon for thrilling stories set in some of the most beautiful but frequently very dangerous places in the world. This story brings back two strong characters from Park's earlier stories - Sonja Kurtz (from "The Delta"), an ex-soldier turned mercenary and Hudson Brand (from "The Hunter"), ex-CIA, now a safari guide who also moonlights in dangerous insurance investigations.

Sonja is in Vietnam on a contract to track down and kill a wealthy businessman who is involved in the illegal smuggling of financially valuable horns from endangered Rhinos into SE Asia.

At the same time, her daughter Emma, a student archeologist, is on a dig at the edge of Namibia's Etosha National Park which discovers a body that dates back to the war of liberation from South Africa in the 1980's. The body has dog tags identifying it as Hudson Brand, but Brand is alive and well living in South Africa. What she doesn't know is that the body could be a vital clue to locating a modern-day lost treasure and when the news is released other dangerous people join in the hunt.

Emma immediately sends an urgent text message to Sonja for her help in finding out what has happened. On her return to Africa after her successful mission, Sonya gets the message from her daughter, but when she gets to Namibia she finds that Emma has disappeared. Brand also finds out about the discovery and goes to Namibia as well because he knows more about the victim from his time in the civil war. Both Sonya and Brand have to face up to their own past history in Namibia and must join up to find Emma.

Once again this is an exciting and frequently page-turning adventure set mostly in the game reserves of Southern Africa. This time, the action also moves to the "Skeleton Coast" on the Atlantic seaboard of Namibia, in one of the dryest and most inhospitable deserts in the world.

I am a fan of Tony Park's work, especially as it tells me a lot about Africa, its wildlife, the environment and its frequently very violent history. This one has an especially important environmental message about the ongoing battle to prevent the unnecessary slaughter of critically endangered Rhinos for their horns.

Tony Park: The Hunter

A mystery/thriller adventure set in African Game Parks
This time Tony Park moves away from his successful historically based adventures set in Africa to a page-turning contemporary mystery/thriller adventure story set in some of the most magnificent African game parks.

Hudson Brand has been a mercenary but now mostly works as a top safari guide. He also helps out as an insurance investigator with suspicious cases - then he hunts people. Brand is down on his luck when he is asked to find Linley Brown who has been named as the beneficiary of a life insurance policy after her best friend Kate has been reported dead in a fiery car accident in Zimbabwe. Linley survived the crash and has recovered from her injuries. Kate's sister Anna believes that the insurance claim is a scam.

The trail leads Brand into Zimbabwe on the track of the Doctor who identified Kate and to find clues to Linley's whereabouts. Brand knows that there are unscrupulous Doctors there that have helped with fictitious insurance claims. At the same time South African detectives are also looking for Linley as a con-artist stealing from luxury homes. They are also looking for Brand as a suspected serial killer who has been murdering prostitutes.

This sets the scene for  a chase which roams from South Africa to Zimbabwe and eventually Kenya, mostly against the settings of beautiful game parks and magnificent wildlife. Tony Park has written an enthralling page-turning mystery/thriller adventure with some surprising twists in the tale. It is a good read but IMHO not as good as some of his earlier historically based factional thrillers.

Tony Park: Ivory

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An exciting African adventure
Tony Park writes great adventure stories. What makes them special is that they are set in Africa, a continent that this Australian writer has come to know and love. This is one of his early works which I enjoyed revisiting again.

Alex Tremain was born in Mozambique in Southern Africa and the family ran a luxury hotel on a beautiful island just off the coast in Mozambique. When civil war came to the country the hotel was ransacked by the rebels and the locals. Alex went off to war and joined the South African army. When peace returned Alex vowed to rebuild the hotel into a luxury resort again - but the main problem was money. So Alex and some friends become pirates, ambushing ships on the high seas and stealing building materials or goods that could be sold easily.

Jane Humphries is a successful corporate lawyer with a large UK shipping company who is having an affair with her married boss, George Penfold, who promises her that he will leave his wife. Jane is scared stiff of flying and George arranges for her to go to an important meeting in Cape Town by sea on his flagship container ship, MV Penfold Son. En route the ship picks up a mysterious group of security people who act like mercenaries. By chance while Alex and his crew are tracking a Chinese ship they witness a rendezvous with Penfold Son where a mysterious package changes hands. When Alex boards the Penfold Son to find the package they are met with strong opposition from security. The Captain hands the package to Jane and tells her to guard it with her life. She hides in a the ship's lifeboat and is joined by Alex and his team as they escape from the ship.

After recovering from becoming unconscious after a dangerous lifeboat launch, Jane has to come to grips with the fact that her charming and handsome host at the partly restored hotel is a notorious pirate. She also has to come to grips with the fact that her charming boss is sending his vicious security team to find her and the mysterious package. At the same time she becomes increasingly attracted to Alex.

Meanwhile Alex still needs more money to complete the hotel restoration and does a deal with an unscrupulous Chinese to steal a huge amount of legally culled ivory from under the noses of the South African military.

Sounds complex doesn't it? Yes it is very complex and a bit overboard (forgive the potentially maritime pun) but as long as you don't take it too seriously it is an exciting, page-turning adventure set against the interesting wildlife background of Southern Africa.

Tony Park: The Prey

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Mayhem in modern day Southern Africa
This time in "The Prey", Australian author Tony Park takes us to modern day Southern Africa with a story of powerplay, lawlessness, violence, and the continued influence of the civil wars of the fairly recent past, set against a background of the perils of underground mining and the beauty of the African bush and its wildlife.

The Eureka mine, owned by Australian based mining giant Global Resources, is one of the largest and most successful deep underground gold mines in South Africa. The mine has many disused mineshafts and tunnels from earlier days where the "zama zamas" illegally hunt for gold under the brutal control of Wellington Shumba, a product of the many violent civil wars in Southern Africa. During a hunt for the illegal miners operating close to Eureka's current operations, 2 security guards are killed and Chris Loubser, responsible for mine safety, is kidnapped by Wellington to help him improve the safety of his illegal operations.

Global Resources is facing another battle in South Africa where their proposal to develop a huge open cut coal mine in a private game area just outside the Kruger National Park is coming under a strong environmental publicity attack from Tertia Venter who operates a tourist park in that pristine area.

Kylie Hamilton, high flying Executive General Manager, Health, Safety, and Environment is sent to by her Australian based South African CEO, Jan Stein, to manage the response to the kidnapping and the proposal for the new mine. There she meets former recce commando Cameron McMurtrie, the tough but efficient manager of Eureka and gets involved with him in the rescue of Loubser and the elimination of the "zama zamas".

The story then becomes rapidly moving and sometimes a bit unbelievable thriller as Kylie and Cameron hunt down Wellington at the same time as Wellington hunts down, kills and kidnaps. When the mine is closed down by the unions for environmental safety reasons Wellington virtually takes over the whole underground operations.

At first I found the idea of illegal miners operating close to a large mining operation to be a bit far fetched until I learned that in mid 2009 over 80 illegal miners operating in old workings of the Harmony Gold mine were killed in an underground explosion. To alleviate their economic distress, many unemployed, independent and redundant miners are operating illegally in old workings throughout Southern Africa under unsafe conditions.

I am a great fan of Tony Park and have enjoyed all of his adventure stories of Africa. While I enjoyed this book, IMHO this one was not as good as the others because it focussed more on sometimes unbelievable actions and less on the Africa that Park loves and knows and loves so well.

Tony Park: Dark Heart

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Rwanda Genocide Re-visited
It takes a very talented, confident and knowledgeable author to base an adventure/thriller story on the aftermath of the appalling 1994 Rwanda genocide.  Only Australian author Tony Park can do this successfully using his knowledge, love and understanding of Africa and his great storytelling skills for the unusual things that can happen on that Continent.

The Rwandan genocide happened in 1994 when the minority Tutsi tribe brutally massacred literally hundreds of thousand of the majority Hutu tribe, who then took similarly brutal retribution on the Tutsi. While Dark Heart briefly focuses on the brutality of  the time of retribution, it closely explores the lasting effect of the genocide on 3 members of the UN Peacekeeping force that was under orders not to intervene to curb the violence unless provoked.

Richard was a UK doctor attached to the Australian UN contingent who was involved in trying to save the lives of the multitude of injured.  Liesl, a South African magazine photographer saw it all through the lense of her camera and captured a photo that would haunt all of their lives many years later.  Away from the action, Carmel, an Australian Army legal officer had to cope with the stress of making sure that the UN rules of non intervention were followed. The emotional relationships between them was changed unalterably by what happened at that time.

Their memories of their experience in Rwanda had a permanent post traumatic effect on all of their future lives, including inabilities to form long term relationships, and alcohol and drug abuse to cover their memories. Frighteningly the past becomes the present again for all them when their lives are threatened when they become witnesses to the final legal investigations into the main perpetrators of the genocide.

This is work of fiction based on real life and Tony Park weaves a tangled web of action and intrigue moving from Thailand to Australia, South Africa, Zambia and finally Rwanda. Park's love and knowledge of Africa. its peoples and wildlife shines throughout the book.

I found it hard to give an appropriate ranking for this book. As always the African context was superb but  the storytelling was not as taut and realistic as his other books and at times I had difficulty following the lives of the major players and some of the action was a bit unbelievable. I ended up just giving it a 4 star rating because, despite some shortcomings, it was a story that few authors could even start to tell.

I am a great fan of Tony Park's books (even keeping print copies of some in my post Kindle bookshelf).  I must praise Pan Macmillan Australia for supporting Park (and other superb Australian novelists like Peter Watt) and hope that they can promote his work more widely internationally, especially in the US where the more historical African adventures of Wilbur Smith have long been best sellers.