"In the first novel in Marlon James' Dark Star trilogy, African myth, fantasy and history come together in the story of a band of mercenaries hired to find a missing child. Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: "He has a nose," people say. Engaged by a mysterious slave trader to track down a boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to find the boy. The band is a hodge-podge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard. As Tracker follows the boy's scent--from one ancient city to the next, through dense forests and across deep rivers--the band is set upon by creatures intent on destroying Tracker and his cohorts. As he struggles to survive, Tracker starts to wonder: Who, really, is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep Tracker from finding him? And perhaps the most important question of all: who is telling the truth and who is lying? Combining African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has written an immersive saga of breathtaking adventure that's also a deeply involving novel. Black Leopard, Red Wolf is both an addictive page-turner and a genre-defying epic. Bold, ambitious and captivating, it's a literary event that's great fun to read."--