Shout At The Devil by Wilbur Smith

This was my first Wilbur Smith book and I have to say, I loved it!

It is the eve of WWI, tensions are mounting all over the world and the people brace for the imminent bloodshed. Down in German occupied East Africa however, laughing in the face of Death is an unlikely duo: A flamboyant Irish American, Flynn O'Flynn, who proclaims himself to be the best ivory poacher in Africa and the perfect Englishman, Sebastian Oldsmith. The latter, on his way to Australia, ends up in Zanzibar where his belongings are stolen. An unwily Oldsmith is then recruited by Flynn, who shows him a letter from the German emperor himself, requesting Flynn to shoot up all his elephants because they were 'eating up all the grass and smashing up all the trees and things'! 

What begins as a comic escapade transforms into horrifying reality as WWI sets in and death strikes those dearest to them. The plot becomes grisly all too soon and the next thing you know people are dying left and right in manners I wouldn't care to recollect.

Nobody writes like Smith. He manages to craft detailed descriptions of Africa, it's people and their ways while at the same time bringing out an edge-of-your seat thriller. There is action right from the start, chases by land and sea, nasty crocodiles and nastier Germans, massacres, ambushes and disease. The level of detail he gets into is not for the faint hearted. Days after reading this book, the images of a dying Portuguese pilot and the graphic scenes of elephant slaughter is still all too vivid in my mind. But seriously, sentences like '...the kidneys popped like overripe Satsuma plums' made me reconsider dinner!  

What I loved here apart from the plot itself was that the villains, the Germans, were not portrayed entirely as the bad guys. Some of their seamen were cast as courageous, chivalrous and heroic. The story has a ring of authenticity to it, no part of it seemingly fictional or any person in the cast super-heroic. I found this lacking in the works of many authors, even some whose books I really like.

This book was unique and was a refreshing experience for me, very different from others in the same category. I look forward to reading more of Smith's books.