A review of The Lioness by Chris Bohjalian,
Doubleday, NY, 2022
This novel is a thriller with an ostensibly simple plot. A
group of movie stars is kidnapped while on safari in the Serengeti in
1964. Alternating between flashbacks
(mostly boring) to key moments in their lives, the protagonists struggle with
their captors against the backdrop of vicious wild animals. Death lurks on all
sides – from ruthless Russian captors or leopards, snakes, or hyenas. Plenty of
people die.
The Africa setting, that is descriptions of the game reserve
park are accurate, but geography is way off – equating an easy drive, for
example, from the Serengeti to Albertville, Congo. Oops! that is hundreds of
miles distant and there is a huge lake in the way. The motive for kidnapping slowly leaks out as
the novel moves forward. It is implausible, but it does keep the tale going.
Afterall this is fiction.
The author inaccurately described a wrecked land rover when
one character insists that another roll up the windows, so the dead inside
won’t be eaten by scavengers. Land
rovers in the 1960s all had sliding windows, not roll-ups. Similarly, the author describes a leopard
attack that probably could never occur. But again, cut him some slack. It is
fiction.
As improbably as the story is, I enjoyed the novel.
