"Deftly written . . . Patterson's book must now be considered the definitive Tsavo lion study. Patterson's research at Chicago's Field Museum and Tsavo National Park--the most important wildlife preserve in East Africa--have established him as one of the world's leading experts on lions as well as an important conservationist."--Publishers Weekly
"It was a great relief to find this wonderfully thorough, scientific, and hugely accurate tome . . . the thrill of so many new details (and newly found photos) put together in historical (Darwinian) biological and ecological perspective. Not a stone is left unturned in this cunning cat and mouse game (on a big scale) where the hunter is the hunted and the jungle beast appears like a ghost at night to kill."--Peter Beard, Photographer, Naturalist, and Author of The End of the Game
"Through tenacious research and in elegant words, Bruce Patterson has demystified one of Africa's most celebrated tales of derring-do. Thanks to the spirited curiousity of this 21st Century researcher and his team, history can, at last, be told, and the lion can take its place, in a fashion, as king of teh beasts. Even man-eaters, we may conclude, are worthy of our admiration."--John Hemingway, filmmaker, producer, and Author of Yonder: A Place in Montana
"The man-eating lions of Tsavo are but tow of more than 22 million specimens in the Field Museum's collections. Each has stories to tell. Like the Tsavo lions, each can speak to evolutionary origins, growth and development, ecology, functional morphology, and behavior. Patterson's account criss-crosses these now-disparate fields, recalling a time when all were unified as 'natural history.'"--John W. McCarter, Jr., President and CEO, The Field Museum