A Guide to the Beasts of East Africa by Nicholas Drayson: book review

A Guide to the Beasts of East Africa (2012) is a fictional novel set in Nairobi, Kenya, in contemporary times – the second in the series following A Guide to the Birds of East Africa (2008).

Mr Malik, now a retired 66 year old, writes an anonymous column on Kenyan politics for the Evening News. There is talk that the paper might be shut down. And the Asadi Club may close too.

The Asadi Club mascot is a stuffed lion, known as the Kima Killer, the lion that killed the superintendant of the railway police in 1990. It is looking shabby now, and is totally politically incorrect. Should it stay or should it go? Before a decision is made, it disappears!

The Asadi Club members are debating the age-old murder mystery of the death of Lord Errol in Nairobi in January 1941. It needs to be settled ‘once and for all.’ So they decide to hold a debate on the evening before their annual Asadi Club safari. It is Patel versus Gopez, adjudicated by Tiger Singh. Has it been settled once and for all?

Mr Malik last met his school boy rival, Harry Khan, four years ago when they were vying for the attention of Rose Mbikwa. But Rose has been in Scotland for four years and Harry returned to America. Now Harry and Rose are back in Nairobi, just before the annual Asadi Club safari, an annual event since 1958. The love rivallry continues!

And Mr Malik’s daughter Petula has had a misunderstanding with her fiance Salman. So who is the man with her at the Jockey Bar of the Hilton Hotel late on a Thursday night? Does Petula have competition from her school girl friend Sunita for the attention of this man? And who is ‘my friend Kennedy’?

There are so many mysteries to be solved, and so many love rivalries to be settled in this wonderful comical story. Nice characters and an easily untangled plot make this a fun read.

MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

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