This is Vermont’s Chris Bohjalian’s 23rd book and one which will almost certainly join several others of his in being made into a movie.  It has interesting (though shallowly developed) characters, plot (though it requires a stretch of the imagination), and enough action, gore, and violence to appeal to today’s Hollywood audiences.

If that has whet your appetite, read no further and go out and get this ‘beach reader’ and enjoy it.  If I’ve managed to turn you off, here’s the quick summary.  Katie Barstow, a very popular actress at the height of her career, decides to celebrate her honeymoon by taking 7 of her friends and close relatives along with her gallerist husband on a safari.  They are guided by the legendary big game hunter, Charlie Patton.  Along the way, the group is kidnapped by Russian KGB agents for obscure reasons.  By the book’s end, only Katie, her best friend Carmen, and her brother are alive with the rest of the group having been dispatched by Russian guns, a leopard’s jaws, and a hyena’s bite.

The action is fast and in Bohjalian style, the gore piles up as the book proceeds.  A good summer read if you’re not particular about your literary fiction.