Two lone adventurers, Jake Barton, a big, rangy American with a friendly grin and a will of iron, and Gareth Swales, a handsome elegant Englishman with pirate eyes and a mocking smile, share a similar past. Unfettered by responsibility, they have always moved from one escapade to another. Now they find themselves drawn as unlikely partners into a last catastrophic adventure, the Italian campaign in Abyssinia just before World War II.
Desperate to save his beleaguered land, an Ethiopian prince charges Jake and Gareth with the delivery not only of four ancient refurbished armoured cars that with pitiful faith he sees as his country's salvation, but also of Vicky Camberwell, an impassioned young American journalist who will broadcast Ethiopia's plight to the uncaring world. Unable to resist the promise of gold, Jake and Gareth are drawn this time into a nightmare sruggle, a challenge to even their combined genius and resourcefulness. For the Italians are not the Ethiopians' only enemy; their 'allies', the vicious and perfidious Gallas, defect leaving them with the unlikely trio of Jake, Gareth and Vicky as their only friends in the world.
'The action moves from the sea, to desert and mountain and the mood ranges from comedy through adrenalin-pumping excitement to desperation. Vivid scenes of tribal feasting and grisly massacre contrast with sequences featuring the farcical antics of some of the Italian soldiers, and there is an intriguing love story as both Jake and Gareth fall in love with Vicky. At the climax to the novel, retreat to a horrifying death in the mountains seems the only possible outcome, until at the last moment there is hope - but not for all three. For Gareth is mortally wounded. At last this irrepressible rogue and adventurer admits defeat and makes possible his friends' escape as at the end Jake and Vicky fly out of the mountain struggle together. Mixing comedy and romance with violence and war, Wilbur Smith offers in Cry Wolf an unusual and exciting historical adventure story.
Copyright ? 2001 St. Martin's Press