Will Staples: Animals

In his debut novel, Will Staples enters the dark world of animal trafficking and harvesting:

Protecting the Rhino is a dangerous and deadly job, you never know who is on your side or not. When two of SADF veteran Corbus Vector friends are murders protecting on of the last Rhino’s he has reached his breaking point. He wants to put a stop to the use of Rhino horn his own way. Embarking on a vigilante mission he plans to take down as many people and syndicates as he can. Meanwhile, insurance investigator Randall Knight is called to a road side zoo where all the big cats have died except one. Knight is suspicious of the cub’s origins and begins his own investigation into animal trafficking. Both men are headed to the darkest parts of SE Asia where the crime syndicates will do anything to keep the money in animal trafficking flowing.

I believe this book is a first for me as it deals with animal trafficking and harvesting. I have read plenty of books about drugs, murder, human trafficking etc, but never one dealing with animals. Let me tell you it is Absolutely heartbreaking, Animals dying for no purpose at all other than to feed human greed. Animal ripped away from their homes to be featured in a road side zoo and do not even get me started on the parts harvesting, just horrible. This book is never expletive in what happens to some of the animal but it doesn’t take too much to guess.

I think my favourite part of the book was that Staples frames the story with following the "product" of Rhino horn from Africa to Asia. He seems to understand the full circle of where the rhino horn comes from, what is done to find the rhinos, how it is shipped over seas and then those who use it for its "magical" powers.

You cannot help but cheer for Vector in his crusade to take down SE Asian syndicate that is responsible for his friend’s death but at the same time his methods are questionable and he is very much at times and anti-hero.

The insurance side of things was also interesting, and not something that you hear or read about on a regular basis, of how animals in zoo are insured and what is done in order to get a new animal if something happens to an old one. There are really criminal markets for everything, but i think we have all known for a long time, that if is makes money, humans are willing to do it.

This was a really good debut novel and I like the international feel of the book. I look forward to reading another book by Staples.

Enjoy!!! 

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