Captive by Tony Park

Publisher's Synopsis

A woman's quest to save wildlife turns lethal

A very eager - and rather naive - Australian lawyer, Kerry Maxwell, flies into South Africa to volunteer at a wildlife orphanage run by notorious vet, Graham Baird.

Graham is as jaded and reckless as Kerry is law-abiding and optimistic. When Kerry arrives at the animal sanctuary it's to the news that Graham is imprisoned in Mozambique following a shootout with elephant poachers. In the gunfight he killed the brother of corrupt politician and poaching kingpin Fidel Costa.

Kerry's earnest sense of justice takes her to Massingir to help Graham with his case, and into a world of danger. Kidnapped, chased, attacked and betrayed, Kerry learns the bitter truth about the complexities and deadly nature of the war on poaching.

Even the motivations of well-meaning charities, wealthy donors and private zoos are not all they appear.

Kerry's perilous entanglement may be what Graham needs to shake off his drunken cynicism and rejoin the fight for Africa's animals, but is it enough, and in time, to stop Costa's quest for revenge...

My Review of Captive by Tony Park

Captive is another strong story by Tony Park pitting the cruelty and senselessness of poaching against the difficult work of conservationists in Africa. With an intimate knowledge of the wild and unpredictable continent, Park brings the landscape to vivid life while placing dangerous and ruthless humans within its heart to create a pulse-pounding thriller with few rules.

We start by meeting Dr Graham Baird who is a vet working at a wildlife refuge, a charity organisation in South Africa. He prefers animals to people and is fighting the good fight against poachers in a bid to preserve the local wildlife. He’s also a raging alcoholic and not what you’d call reliable.

Kerry Maxwell has travelled from Australia, where she works as a lawyer, to South Africa to work as a volunteer to assist Baird in his work. She’s paid (donated) a lot of money for the opportunity to do some good in the fight to help save Africa’s endangered animals.

She arrives at the agreed place at the agreed time, but Baird’s not there and the accommodation booking hasn’t been made. He’s in a Mozambique prison having shot a couple of poachers, one of whom was the brother of local politician and poaching kingpin Fidel Costa.

Costa’s out for revenge and has an extraordinarily wide reach within Mozambique and its neighbours. With local police in his back pocket, an army of mercenary poachers who aren’t particular about what they shoot and a burning desire to make Baird pay, he’ll stop at nothing, including kidnapping the visiting Australian lawyer to satisfy the anger burning inside.

Plenty of gunplay ensues, pitched battles, narrow escapes and awkward moments between the chief protagonists. It all happens in a blurring rush with barely enough time to formulate plans of escape, attack or where to head next. In short, it’s your typical action thriller with the most glorious backdrop behind it.

There is an important message being conveyed throughout the course of Captive and it has to do with the scourge of poaching in Africa and the disastrous effect it’s having on the animal population. In particular, the plight of the black rhino which is targeted for the horn and its supposed healing properties. Protecting these magnificent creatures is a difficult task and Tony Park provides important information about the impact that the illegal trade is having on them.

The relationship between Baird and Kerry was reminiscent of the one in African Queen between Bogart and Hepburn. The crusty unkempt Bogart and the staid, proper Hepburn with vastly differing outlooks on life to start with before a gradual understanding and appreciation for the other. This is the kind of dynamic found between Graham Baird and Kerry Maxwell.

Billed as part of the Sannie van Rensburg series, she appears very late in the piece when the cops are called in to sort out the mayhem that has gone on before. Her role, while quite minor, is important to the outcome of the story, but could have been performed by any police detective for all the expertise and experience displayed.

It’s clear that Tony Park is passionate about Africa and the wildlife that inhabits the land. Poaching has become a frequent theme within his books, clearly because it continues to be a problem with no real simple answers. This story also shines a bit of a spotlight on the charitable organisations that raise money to help in the fight to save the animals and their potential for falling prey to unscrupulous characters too.

Entertaining as well as educational, Captive is high speed action, despicable bad guys and the occasional amusing moments to lighten the mood a little. Once again, descriptions of the African wildlife steal the show.