A mesmerizing novel of love and nostalgia set in the vast spaces of contemporary East Africa.
Romantic, often resonantly ironic, moving and wise, Rules of the Wild transports us to a landscape of unsurpassed beauty even as it gives us a sharp-eyed portrait of a closely knit tribe of cultural outsiders: the expatriates living in Kenya today. Challenged by race, by class, and by a longing for home, here are "safari boys" and samaritans,...

In 1988, a retired schoolteacher named Pius Fernandes receives an old diary found in the back room of an East African shop. Written in 1913 by a British colonial administrator, the diary captivates Fernandes, who begins to research the coded history he encounters in its terse, laconic entries. What he uncovers is a story of forbidden liaisons and simmering vengeances, family secrets and cultural exiles-a story that leads him on an investigative journey...

With his headstrong daughter Saffron pursuing her education in London at Oxford, Leon Courtney navigates the politics of colonial Kenya. Saffron grew up on a sprawling Kenyan estate, under the watchful eye of her father, businessman and war veteran Leon Courtney. Following a family tragedy, her thirst for knowledge and adventures leads her to England, where she finds herself inevitably drawn into the lead-up to World War II. Gerhard von Meerbach...

A young hippopotamus explains why he trusts children but has a healthy distrust of all grownups.