Murder on Safari: A Novel of Suspense

When James Addison's editor assigns him to cover a bird-watching safari in Kenya game parks, he isn't too thrilled. But he goes reluctantly and stumbles into a series of murders. First a crusty tycoon is killed, then the tycoon's son, then others. The murders seem simultaneously connected (the victims all work in the same corporation) and disjointed. Meanwhile, it transpires, one of the members of the bird-watching expedition is the previously famous detective Jesse Dakar, now burnt-out and traveling under the pseudonym of Colonel Dagger. Addison and the Colonel team up to investigate the murders. They are joined hesitantly by Lumumba, a captain of the Kenyan police who despises all whites. Formulated on the classic whodunit model, this novel by veteran Waugh never really catches fire. The characters are cardboard-thin and unsympathetic. As a result, when some of them get murdered, no sense of danger ensues. The reader is cheated in another wayby being given too few clues to figure out the end until it arrives courtesy of deus ex machina. (December)