Wilbur Smith's writing captivates his listeners with tale full of passions, rage, and glory. In Birds of Prey, he sets the scene for 1667 when Sir Francis Courteney and his son Hal are on patrol in their fighting caravel off the Agulhas Cape of South Africa. They are lying in wait there for one of the treasure-laden galleons of the Dutch East India Company returning from the Orient. So begins a quest for adventure and the spoils of war.
It is 1913 and ex-soldier turned professional big game hunter, Leon Courtney, is in British East Africa guiding rich and powerful men from America and Europe on safaris in the Masai tribe territories. One of his clients, German industrialist Count Otto Von Meerbach, has a company which builds aircraft and vehicles for the Kaiser's burgeoning army. But Leon had not bargained for falling passionately in love with Eva, the Count's beautiful and enigmatic mistress.
It is 1913 and ex-soldier turned professional big game hunter Leon Courtney is in British East Africa guiding rich and powerful men from America and Europe on safaris in the Masai tribe territories. One of his clients, German industrialist Count Otto Von Meerbach, has a company which builds aircraft and vehicles for the Kaiser's burgeoning army. But Leon had not bargained for falling passionately in love with Eva, the Count's beautiful and enigmatic mistress.
Into the wilds of Natal in the 1870s are born Sean and Garrick Courtney, the twin brothers who could not be more different. Fate, war, and the jealous schemes of a woman are to drive them even further apart. But as history unfolds, a continent is awakening. And on its horizon is the promise of fortune, adventure, destiny, and love.
At the dawn of a new century, the pioneers of Rhodesia have staked their claims and stocked their farms in the land they have carved as their own. But in the hills, the Matable indunas are preparing for the bloody rebellion that will scar the opponents forever and etch for them the same tragic legacy for generations to come.
It is 1667, and the mighty naval war between the Dutch and the English still rages. Sir Francis Courteney and his son Hal, in their fighting caravel, are on patrol off southern Africa, lying in wait for a treasure-laden galleon of the Dutch East India Company that is returning from the Orient. They have a letter from Charles II sanctioning them to hunt down and capture enemy ships "beyond the line".
The passionate love of a beautiful French aristocrat for a courageous South African aviator is begun and extinguished in the blazing skies of war-torn France. But Centaine de Thiry is bent on realizing some of the dreams she and Michael Courtney have shared, and she sets out to seek a future for his unborn child in the country of Michael's birth.
Jake Barton is an American engineer, Gareth Swales a stylish Englishman with a nose for a quick deal. Both have always moved from one escapade to another. Now, as Mussolini prepares to annihilate the people of Ethiopia, the two adventurers come up against Vicky Camberwell, the beautiful but fiery reporter bent on espousing their cause. The trio dares to run a gauntlet of guns and a batch of run-down armoured cars in a final, desperate gamble for freedom.
The Van Der Byl Diamond Company, willed by its founder to his son Benedict, turns out to be a bequest of hatred. For it is couched in such terms as to offer him the instrument of destruction of his bitterest rival. "Destroy Johnny" is the old man's implacable message. And so, consumed with envy for his own foster-brother, Benedict sets out in ruthless pursuit of this goal - and Johnny is plunged into a maelstrom of greed, vengeance, and murder.
In the blinding light of Zimbabwe's Chiwewe National Park, Dr Daniel Armstrong, world-famous TV naturalist, films the slaughter of a herd of elephants. In London, anthropologist Kelly Kinnear is forced into violent confrontation with the shareholders of the most powerful conglomerate in the City of London, warning them of the destruction of an African country.
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