Zimbabwe
by Lincoln Hughes
I’ve never met big-game hunter Lincoln Hughes. But whenever his stories for ‘ASG’ arrive, I know we’re in for intelligence, attention to detail, style, and a chuckle.
So when his self-published 285-page paperback novel, Zimbabwe, appeared in the mail with the note, “Please write your review before Mugabe dies, otherwise it loses its import,” I added the book to my MUST READ pile.
Eighteen months later, the ruinous 85-year-old dictator is still alive and in power. White-owned farms are still being overrun by his so-called ‘war veterans,’ the country’s currency remains shattered, and his opponents are still being arrested, beaten, murdered or banned. And professional hunters and their clients are still in the bush, following spoor and bagging big game.
Hughes, whose hunting life was most intense between 1988 and 2005 when he made nine African safaris, taking the Big Five with PHs such as Ian Wilmot, Andy Wilkinson and Derek Adams, sounds very comfortable with his material, whether his characters are discussing hunting rifles, the country’s political landscape, or the dynamics between older gents and their trophy wives and kudu.
In this novel, it’s 1978 and the PH is Ian MacGregor (and his Westley-Richards .475 No. 2 Nitro Express). His clients are the .375 H&H-armed Lee Kirkwood, a 48-year-old merger and acquisitions lawyer from Chicago and his baby-hungry wife, Sally, who sports ‘comely thighs.’ And camp cook Samuel Mteki is not exactly who or what he appears to be.
Lincoln describes Mteki’s activities and involvement with dubious characters like Sergeant Nathan Sithole and Major Joshua Zinyeki.
Sally is kidnapped and rescued by the PH, but not before…. And I can’t tell you that part without spoiling the story.
Twenty years later, in 1998, Lee is back again in Zimbabwe, this time with his son Tommy. Sally, in the meanwhile, has died of cancer.
Again, the stories running parallel between white-cliented safari camps and black liberation camps are set with flashes between the two. Now, Ian and his white buddies themselves have become terrorists, buying guns in Mozambique and stashing them in Botswana, with the intent of shaking up things enough to destabilize Mugabe’s rule. “Our best hope is that enough people will revolt that ordinary soldiers will be reluctant to fire upon them,” eventually leading to the army turning against Mugabe, too. Their goal is to arm the opposition to resist Mugabe, as fighting for democracy is too hard given Mugabe’s ability to corrupt election results.
There’s some good action here, with plausible double-crossings and some vengeance killings. Few hunters will shy away from Hughes’s description of brutality and torture inflicted by both sides, of vehicles, buildings and people being blown up.
Lincoln gets it all right – how safari hunting takes place, from the campfire and sleeping arrangements, to the landscape and baiting for leopard. In fact, there’s maybe too much (almost patronizing) detail about airfares and discussions comparing bullet performance, various safety mechanisms, and even binoculars. This is not surprising – the first half of the book is the story of a safari – and Lincoln shares with the reader all he has learned from experience.
Although I strongly disagree with the fictional PH leaving his client in the vehicle while he finishes off their wounded big game, the descriptions of hunting, whether for leopard or elephant, are sound and make good reading. But as Hughes reminds in a recent e-mail: “Some PHs do not want their clients along if it becomes necessary to follow up wounded dangerous game. I disagree with the practice too, but I can understand their concerns if they know their client is a lousy shot, unreliable in an emergency, or they are just plain worried about liability.”
Although Lincoln goes to great lengths to recount the political situation in Zimbabwe, from the first rebel movements and all the parties and players, I would have tried to slip that in between the 125-page Book I and Book II, or broken up the information, or put it in a glossary at the back. Still, he does a good wang-bang job in summarizing the ZANU-PF, ZAPU, ZIPRA, ZANLA movements and the road to independence in about 1,000 words.
The dialog is snappy and the book is a good page-turner for taking on the plane on the way to safari, or when you’ve just returned and just can’t face the stack of bad-news Wall Street Journals awaiting your return.
The trade-edition-style paperback Zimbabwe is available online at www. barnesandnoble.com and www.amazon.com