Col. Patterson was an army engineer sent to the Tsavo region in the Republic of Kenya (then called British East Africa) to build a railroad bridge over the Tsavo River. Work on the bridge was halted when a pair of lions, nicknamed Ghost and Darkness by the Indian laborers, killed and ate 135 of the laborers. It took Patterson, an experienced hunter of tigers in India, nine months to track and kill the lions, a harrowing adventure which he chronicled in his 1907 book The Man-Eaters of Tsavo.
"I was also in pursuit of lions," Caputo writes, "...to lift the veils of legend that had shrouded the lions of Tsavo ever since Colonel Patterson's book made them notorious...my quest was to find out the truth about one of humankind's oldest myths, the myth of the rogue beast, the man-eater." Caputo's quest for lions and the truth is chronicled in Ghosts of Tsavo: Stalking the Mystery Lions of East Africa
Caputo begins Ghosts of Tsavo with the heart-pounding tale of Wayne Hosek, an estate planner from California who is on a hunting safari in the Luangwa Valley of eastern Zambia in 1991. A lion which has become known as "The Man-Eater of Mfuwe" has been terrorizing the nearby villagers, killing six in two months. A religious man, Hosek finds himself repeating the phrase, "To him who knows good and doesn't do it is a sin," steeling himself to go after the man-eater. Caputo chronicles Hosek's tale, while also relating the adventures of Patterson, 93 years earlier, noting the similarities and differences between the attacks.
Caputo introduces us to Iain Allan, proprietor of Tropical Ice Ltd., his safari company specializes in treks to the frozen summit of Kilimanjaro. Iain has had plenty of experience with lions, and the stories he tells will keep you awake at night if you happen to be on safari in Tsavo looking for lions that regularly attack, kill, and eat humans. Iain's climbing partner Clive Ward is a trove of information, despite his occasional malapropisms, such as referring to the Royal Geographic Society library as a great "suppository of information." Iain and Clive take Caputo, his wife Leslie, and photographer Rob Howard into Tsavo National Park in Kenya to see the famous lions of Tsavo. (Tsavo National Park is the least visited park in Kenya, and at 8,200 square miles it is one of the largest national parks in the world.)
