Peter Riva. Kidnapped on Safari. Skyhorse, 2020.

Kidnapped on Safari is an entertaining story. It starts off as a simple and direct rescue story but evolves into a potential major power confrontation.

Billed as a thriller, much of the story is really more of a mystery. Pero Balthasar, an ex-pat American who organizes safaris in East Africa, is currently in Kenya with his top guide Mbuno. They get word that Mbuno’s nephew and adopted son named Ube has been kidnapped and possibly killed while he was on safari in neighboring Tanzania.

There are two mysteries right from the start: Who captured Ube and why? Where did they take him? He is an African bush guide. No one would hold him for ransom, not as they might with a rich Westerner.

This tale is clever and carefully detailed. It involves some careful tracking, imaginative escapes, and dangerous terrain. It is Mission Impossible on the savannah. For example, you have to know what you are doing to swim in waters frequented by elephants, hippopotamuses, and crocodiles. We are reminded that more people are killed every year by hippopotamuses than any other wild animal in Africa.

There is a twist, though.

I teach Jane Eyre nearly every year. Most romances like Jane Eyre end with the female protagonist getting married. Rochester proposes to Jane, Jane accepts, and they make plans for the wedding. But this happens in the book with about two hundred pages to go. Something has to happen to alter the expected outcome.

Kidnapped on Safari is similar.

It is not exactly a spoiler to say that Ube gets rescued, but that is only halfway through the book. Truly, then, only about a third of the book is directly about rescuing the guy kidnapped on safari. While his rescue is dangerous and carefully executed, the story really kicks into high gear after that.

Pero adds to the team that rescued Ube for an exploit that is not only more challenging but involves financial high stakes and people in high places. Why was Ube kidnapped? What does he know? Who is behind it all? The action intensifies, and the tale becomes a page-turner.

The blurb tells us that the author has spent thirty years traveling in East Africa and even produced a television show featuring animals in the wild. He clearly understands tracking, hunting (with cameras or firearms), and the tribes and people of Africa. He may also have learned some things about CIA contractors. This comes through and helps make the story realistic and fascinating.

He knows less about the American military. Bob, one of the main characters on Pero’s team, tells us he was a medic in the American Marine Corps. The Marines do not have medics. Since the Marines are part of the Navy, Navy hospital corpsmen get assigned to the Marines. From my experience, some corpsmen are proud to have served with Marine units and can identify with them, but they are Navy corpsmen. They do not call them medics, either. They are corpsmen; Marines especially often call them “doc.” By the way, corpsman is pronounced Korman.