Following is a review of Assegai by Wilbur
Smith, St. Martins Press, NY, 2009.
Smith has his formula for adventure action books down pat.
This one is no exception. Set in Kenya
before World War One, the author weaves his story around actual historical
figures such as Lord Delamare, President Roosevelt and Colonel Lettow von
Vorbeck. However, the tale’s main
characters are fictional and often outrageously so. They are too handsome, too
honorable, too cruel, too evil, too knowledgeable, too brave, or too beautiful.
Even so their entrance and exit from the plot provides the pace of the story.
The basic plot revolves around a stock Smith character this
time Leon Courtney, a young man who comes into his own as a hero, hunter and
spy. He kills many animals - always
minutely described - beds a series of women, relies on his African guides for
bush and cultural savvy and despite flirting with disastrous failure time and
again, ultimately succeeds in all endeavors.
As noted, it is a well told tale.
Assegai is fiction so the author can create geography, which
he does. He also throws in a bit of
Swahili, which helps shore up the Kenyan setting , but the title is
strange. Assegai is a Zulu word from
southern Africa that is the name for a stabbing spear used there. Although the Masai people of Kenya also use
a similar weapon, the Swahili name for that spear is mkuki or fumo, neither of
which, I guess, are as recognizable to modern readers as assegai. I first picked up the book thinking it was
about southern Africa.
Wilbur Smith’s novels always require a certain suspension of
belief by the reader, but his African settings are valid and his tales move
along. Assegai is a great beach or
airplane book.
