Catherine Sohon with the Wildlife Investigation Agency
picks up a third flat tyre driving on a bush road through
Namibia, so on foot, with a revolver just in case, she
continues towards a ranger station. Then she comes across
a
crashed car with dead people inside - they've been shot.
The trunk of the car holds a clue, a chip of ivory.
Poachers and smugglers abound in this brutal trade. The
IVORY GHOSTS mean Catherine is now also at risk.
Catherine, with a PhD in biology and a remarried father in
San Francisco, had a fiancé in South Africa, Sean, who was
killed. She took a step aside from just counting and
observing elephants when she learned that a hundred of
these creatures were being shot every day. Now a pilot,
she
tracks the poachers and ivory traders. With poor wages,
some of them may be local villagers or rangers, so she can
trust nobody and keeps her mission secret.
The atmosphere is immediate and total as we hear various
creatures in the bush and see the setting sun making dark
silhouettes of an elephant herd. Car seats are too hot to
sit on, while women carry firewood bundles on their heads
and boys drive oxen sleds. I thought Catherine seems
really
capable but not foolhardy. Her new boss tells her that
Africa is a land of broken dreams, and his staff can't be
bothered filling out the complex paperwork to process the
DNA from different tusks. International borders only
exist
on maps, and from the air Catherine sees elephants
wandering across to escape forest fires.
I liked that despite, or because of the remote location,
Catherine uses up to date gadgets like a satellite phone,
low-light binoculars and night-vision digital camera.
However, gossip is still her best way of gathering
information, especially since the village women won't talk
to men. Witchdoctors, self-interested headmen and Chinese
traders provide plenty of suspects - and that's before we
wonder what the foreign aid workers might be adding as
extra-curricular activities.
IVORY GHOSTS is not a book for the tender, with animal
shootings
and human murders, but it provides an excellent amount of
insight into trade of endangered species. Author Caitlin
O'Connell has been living in Namibia with her husband
since
1991, and has written five non-fiction books about
elephants and how local people try to co-exist with them.
IVORY GHOSTS is her first fiction work of fiction, a way
of reaching a
different audience with her message about the plight of
elephants in Africa. If you have enjoyed Nevada Barr's
books about the National Park Rangers in America, or if
you
are interested in taking a safari, IVORY GHOSTS will be a
must-
read. The tension is immediate and never lets up, while
the wildlife steps into the room and breathes over your
shoulder. IVORY GHOSTS by Caitlin O'Connell is a powerful
first novel with an even stronger impact for being fiction
lightly overlaid on fact.
In a blockbuster debut thriller brimming with majestic
wildlife, village politics, and international intrigue, a
chilling quadruple homicide raises the stakes in the
battle
to save Africa’s elephants.
Still grieving over the tragic death of her fiancé,
American
wildlife biologist Catherine Sohon leaves South Africa and
drives to a remote outpost in northeast Namibia, where she
plans to face off against the shadowy forces of corruption
and relentless human greed in the fight against elephant
poaching. Undercover as a census pilot tracking the local
elephant population, she’ll really be collecting evidence
on
the ruthless ivory traffickers.
But before she even reaches her destination, Catherine
stumbles onto a scene of horrifying carnage: three people
shot dead in their car, and a fourth nearby—with his brain
removed. The slaughter appears to be the handiwork of a
Zambian smuggler known as “the witchdoctor,” a figure
reviled by activists and poachers alike. Forced to play
nice
with local officials, Catherine finds herself drawn to the
prickly but charismatic Jon Baggs, head of the Ministry of
Conservation, whose blustery exterior belies his deep
investment in the poaching wars.
Torn between her developing feelings and her unofficial
investigation, she takes to the air, only to be grounded
by
a vicious turf war between competing factions of a
black-market operation that reaches far beyond the borders
of Africa. With the mortality rate—both human and
animal—skyrocketing, Catherine races to intercept a
valuable
shipment. Now she’s flying blind, and a cunning killer is
on
the move.
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