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Wilbur Smith


The Ballantyne Series
A Falcon Flies
Dr Robyn Ballantyne is the daughter of a missionary who discovers that slavery is alive and well in the 1860s in the continent of Africa. She travels into the interior to try and fathom the source of the misery. However she comes into conflict with her brother's more earthly desires for monetary gain.

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Men of Men
Zouga Ballantyne is one of those Englishmen fired by envy by the discovery of gold in the Boer Republics. He is determined to join a group heading north to see if the gold seam or other riches lie in the African interior. The Matabele lands will become the target for their dreams of riches.

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The Angel's Weep
This book jumps between the 1890s and the 1970s as it tries to weave a narrative between the violence at the creation and the demise of Rhodesia as battles over race and land defined the very existence of the state.

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The Leopard Hunts in Darkness
The sole survivor of the Ballantyne family is asked to return to Africa on a secret mission funded by the World Bank. His cover is the writing of a book on Africa but his real task is to send back information on ivory poaching and signs of Soviet interference in the country. The Cold War and African tribal wars collide as Zimbabwe loses.

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The Triumph of the Sun
The Ballantyne family meets the Courtney family in the besieged city of Khartoum in 1884 under the tutelage of the iron-willed General Gordon. Captain Ballantyne tries to smuggle a message out to the relieving force but is it too late?

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The Courtney Series
When the Lion Feeds
The story follows twin settlers in Natal in the last half of the Nineteenth Century. Their cattle farming existence is interupted by the Zulu wars which draws the twins as to a fire. Later, Sean tries his luck in the new gold fields of the Witwatersrand. But, the hurley burley of the speculators is every bit as ruthless as that of the battlefield. Brotherly love is torn asunder.

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The Sound of Thunder
Sean volunteers to fight the burghers in the Boer War. He becomes embroiled in the guerrilla warfare on the veldt. But even peace does not bring release to Sean as his twin brother Garrick creates new problems for his sibling.

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A Sparrow Falls
South African Mark Anders returns home from war in France to find that his grandfather has been murdered and his property seized by an unknown corporation. The complex plot involves Anders' former commanding officer, Sean Courtney, and Sean's power-crazed, super-intelligent son.

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The Burning Shore
A French noblewoman meets and falls for Michael Courtney and agrees to accompany him back to his farm and life back in South Africa. However, en route, her ship is torpedoed and she is thrown ashore on the scorching shoreline of the skeleton coast. How will she survive this alien landscape and be reunited with her lover?

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Power of the Sword
Two Courtney brothers find themselves on opposing sides as World War Two approaches them. The action moves from the goldfields of the veldt to the secret citadels of Afrikaner power, from the ringing Olympic stadium in Berlin to the Abyssinian conflict and ends ultimately in the furore of World War.

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Rage
Post War South Africa finds itself at a turning point as Afrikaner Boers vie with English moderates for control of the destiny of the country. At stake is the fate of the economy and the place of Black Africans in their own country. The Courtney family becomes actors and victims of the forces raging around them as they settle and are settled by destiny.

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Golden Fox
A revolutionary concocts an elaborate plan to help bring down the capitalist system from within. His victims are the South African ambassador, Shasa Courtney, and his daughter. Indeed, a grand-daughter becomes the pawn that sets all the events into motion.

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A Time to Die
Sean Courtney leads a big game hunting expedition that is caught deep in hostile territory, where two tribal armies are engaged in battle. Courtney's fighting and survival instincts are constantly being tested throughout this action-packed story set in the guerrilla wars of Rhodesia and Mozambique.

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Birds of Prey
Leaping way back to the dawn of European colonisation in Africa, this novel sees the Captain Francis Courteney lying in wait off the coast of Africa for a galleon of the Dutch East India Company returning from the Orient laden with spices, timber and gold.

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Monsoon
It is the dawn of the Eighteenth Century and Hal Courteney is sent by the East India Trading Company to attack Arab pirates who are harassing trade off the East African coast. He takes three of his four sons, but one of them absconds to Bombay and another is taken prisoner by the Arabs. Although the mission is an eventual success, there are many tribulations to be survived first.

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Blue Horizon
Set 25 years after Monsoon, the next generation of Courtneys are out to stake their claim in Southern Africa, travelling along the infamous 'Robber's Road'. It is a journey that is both exciting and hazardous, that takes them through the untouched wilderness of a beautiful land filled with warring tribes and wild animals.

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Triumph of the Sun
The Ballantyne family meets the Courtney family in the besieged city of Khartoum in 1884 under the tutelage of the iron-willed General Gordon. Ryder Courteney manages to get a cargo boat into the besieged city but is it too late?

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Standalone Novels
The Dark of the Sun
Bruce Curry sets out with a trainload of mercenaries to relieve a mining town in the heart of the African jungle although they are more interested in the diamonds to be found there. Either way the journey turns out to be a nightmare.

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Shout at the Devil
As World War One approaches Anglo-German rivalry between an ivory hunter and the German Commissioner becomes all too real as the two sides go head to head. The arrival of a German Cruiser in the area turns this backwater into a strategically important target - if only they can find that ship.

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Cry Wolf
A European and American gun runner become involved in gun running in the Abyssinian conflict of 1935-6. The Italian armies are going to make life as difficult as possible for these entrepreneurs.

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by Stephen Luscombe