Blood Trail by Tony Park

Publisher's Synopsis

Evil is at play in a South African game reserve. A poacher vanishes, two young girls go missing, a tourist disappears ... magic or murder?

A poacher vanishes into thin air, defying logic and baffling ace tracker Mia Greenaway, who hears rumours of witchcraft.

Meanwhile Captain Sannie van Rensburg, still reeling from a personal tragedy, is investigating the disappearance of two young girls who locals fear have been abducted for use in sinister traditional medicine practices.

When a tourist goes missing, Mia and Sannie must work together and follow a bloody trail that seems to vanish at every turn.

My Review of Blood Trail by Tony Park

The beauty and wonder of southern Africa is once again showcased by Tony Park in the thriller Blood Trail. This is the 5th book to feature Captain Sannie van Rensburg, a police detective who finds herself fighting the difficult battle of catching and arresting poachers. The fight is taken a step further with the introduction of the possibility that witchcraft is helping the poachers to go undetected.

Skilled trackers play extremely important roles in the vast expanses of Africa, particularly when hunting down poachers. For the poacher’s parts, being able to slip the tracker may be a matter of life and death and, often, relying on dark magic is considered a necessary piece of their armory.

Set towards the tail end of the Covid lockdown restrictions, the safari industry is in difficulty due to the complete lack of tourists. Instead, online safaris enable guides to present animals to the public. But it also means there are far fewer people in the National Parks and this gives the poachers more of an opportunity to work without being spotted.

Mia is one of the most proficient trackers in the country and, as a guide, is determined to stop every poacher working on the land she lives in and loves. So she’s more than a little disturbed when she completely loses the trail of a poacher she’s tracking. It’s as if he’s disappeared into thin air.

The explanation from her partner is that the poacher has used some kind of traditional African magic to help him disappear. This is an area that Mia in no way wants to get into, particularly the argument about one person’s religious beliefs being more valid than another. She has no better explanation for the lost trail, but she won’t entertain the idea that magic was the reason.

When a young girl goes missing while Mia is taking her and her mother on a guided tour of the wildlife park things take a dramatic step up. A simple toilet stop can’t possibly turn into a missing person, but that’s all it takes and, once again, Mia inexplicably loses the trail. Now, with the mother screaming blue murder and her reputation as a tracker seriously in doubt, all the stops are pulled out to find the girl. The fact that she happens to be the third missing girl in a matter of weeks only heightens the pressure.

Blood Trail is a notable entry in the Sannie van Rensburg series for a number of reasons. Firstly, Sannie is dealing with the death of Tom, her husband who was working overseas when his unit was blown up. Secondly, Covid-19 makes its mark, but rather than get caught up in the virus itself, Park has used the national lockdowns to form a crucial part of the plot, creating a very clever criminal enterprise. Thirdly, and endlessly fascinating to me, is the work of wildlife trackers and their abilities to read the spoor left by animals and humans to determine not only what has passed by but also what they were doing and how long ago it happened. Great detail is dedicated to this arcane art and how the signs are read and interpreted.

An interesting plot that unfolds with great pace and dotted with cleverly disguised twists, important messages about animal protection and conservation and a strong main character help to make this an engrossing read.