THE PLACE OF LIONS
by Eric Campbell
A London teenager eagerly follows his father to a new life in Tanzania—and straight into disaster. When their light plane crashes in the Serengeti, only Chris is uninjured enough to go for help. Not only natural dangers stand between him and the nearest settlement; there's also a deadly pair of ivory poachers, who are surprised in action and vengefully chased by an American and a retired game warden who's there on a photographic safari; an aging lion, undertaking his last journey, also closely parallels Chris's course. All these players converge at the climax; meanwhile, the story's drama is heightened by some melodramatic prose (``His gorge still rose as his nostrils caught the heavy stench of animal breath, blood breath, blood stench, blanketing the air in this savage and terrible place'') and by a succession of vividly set scenes. The characters in this all-male adventure (well, there are some female lions) are painted in bold strokes—in the American's case, rather broadly: ``He asks me if I know how to shoot...I'm a New Yorker. In New York you're born knowing how to shoot....'' For fans of Paulsen and other no-frills adventure novelists. (Fiction. 11-15)