A primitive, punitive stalk- through the African jungle- has a dark fascination and follows Nebu- the Kikuyu- who trails and kills the Bwana Gibson, whose houseboy he had been some ten years past. With the bwana (known to have gone mad at the death of his wife- and birth of a half-native child) he finds the youngster, whom he had fathered, and the boy now mocks him- while the bwana's gun refuses to speak for him when they are pursued by a leopard. The smell of Nebu's tainted wound keeps the leopard close- through the days that follow, and finally taking refuge in a cave, Nebu brings the charging leopard down- but not before he has killed the boy.... The author, a Jamaican, whose earlier novel The New Day was published by Knopf in 1948, has caught the savage, sensuous, insistent rhythms of this part of the world and written a novel of some distinction. A market may be more difficult to localize. (Kirkus Reviews)
