Don’t get out of the jeep.” That’s the first thing my husband and I were told when we arrived at our safari lodge in Sabi Sands, South Africa.
As long as you stay in the vehicle, wild
animals consider you part of one enor-
mous beast and they won’t attack. But
the instant you step out of the jeep,
you’re prey. To emphasize that point, our
bush guide Greg told us about a pair of
tourists who didn’t heed the warning and jumped out of the
vehicle to take photos of lions. They were instantly attacked
and killed. “It’s my job to keep you safe,” Greg said. “So
always do what I say.”
A few days later, that advice saved my husband’s life. Every
evening in the bush, Greg would find a safe spot for us to
enjoy cocktails and watch the sunset. That afternoon we
parked on a hilltop, with glorious views all around. There
were six tourists in our truck, and as we climbed out to
stretch our legs, my husband, Jacob, said he needed to answer
the call of nature. “I’ll just go over there,” he told Greg,
pointing to a clump of bushes.
“No, a leopard was seen down in that valley earlier today,”
Greg said, and pointed him in the opposite direction. “Why
don’t you go there instead?”
Thirty seconds later, a leopard strolled out of the very same
bushes where my husband had originally been headed. The
leopard walked toward us. At that terrifying moment we
were all out of the jeep, desperately clutching our cocktails.
Greg yelled: “Everyone freeze!” Calmly, deliberately, he
moved between the leopard and us, his shoulders squared,
arms spread wide. He was using his body
as a human shield to protect us. For a few
tense seconds he and the leopard regarded
each other. Then she decided that this
particular prey was not worth her trouble,
and she wandered back into the bushes.
Back at the lodge that evening, as the
six of us nursed cocktails with shaky
hands, we all agreed that no place in the
bush was truly safe. I thought of how
confidently Greg had faced down that leopard. I thought
about how completely we trusted him to keep us safe.
Then I had a chilling thought: what if he wasn’t the man
he claimed to be? What if the bush guide who met us at the
remote airstrip was really an impostor, who’d come to collect
a truckload of new victims? That’s how a thriller writer’s
mind works. We see frightening possibilities behind every
incident. We think: “what if?” and the answer always leads us
to dark places.
In Die Again, that dark place is the Okavango Delta in
Botswana, where seven tourists have flown in for the safari of
a lifetime. Surrounded by countless perils, they rely on their
hired guide to keep them safe. But days into the journey,
their truck suddenly won’t start, and they’re stranded deep in
the wilderness.
Six years later in Boston, while investigating a series of
bizarre murders, Det. Jane Rizzoli learns that her case is
linked to that same doomed safari in Botswana. Now Jane
must track down the one person who has seen the killer’s face:
the safari’s sole survivor.
A survivor who doesn’t want to be found.
[In My Own Words]
Tess Gerritsen draws on her experiences on an African safari in Die Again, her 11th novel featuring Det. Jane
Rizzoli of the Boston PD and medical examiner Maura Isles.
Leopards, Bush Guides, and ‘Die Again’
BY TESS GERRITSEN
“
the body of a middle-aged woman found
in the forest can be identified, a toddler’s
cries lead Louise and her enigmatic new
partner, Eik Nordstrøm, to a brutally
slain babysitter, not far from the first
corpse—the very place where a teenage
Louise suffered the tragedy that would
shape her life. As the dogged investigator
and Eik—to whom she finds herself
attracted despite his alcoholism and other
issues—pursue links to a long-shuttered
mental institution, it starts to look as if
the past could prove key to catching a
present-day monster. The swiftly moving
plot and engaging core characters help
make up for serviceable prose and a hard-
to-swallow denouement. Author tour. (Feb.)
★ Breaking Creed
Alex Kava. Putnam, $26.95 (320p) ISBN
978-0-399-17076-8
Bestseller Kava introduces Ryder
Creed, who has started his own search-dog
business after serving in a K9 unit in the
Marines, in this superior introduction to a
new thriller series. In the Gulf of Mexico,
off Pensacola, Fla., Creed and his team
inspect a commercial fishing vessel, which
the authorities suspect is being used to
smuggle drugs. Unexpectedly, one of
Creed’s dogs uncovers human cargo
hidden in the hold—five filthy children
who appear to be Americans. Meanwhile,
FBI agent Maggie O’Dell, the star of the
author’s other series (Stranded, etc.), tries
to identify a floater found in the Potomac
