British East Africa during World War I is the setting of this taut, exciting novel. The British are rushing to complete a vital railway link, but progress is hindered by hostile terrain and the depredations of two man-eating lions. While the hungry animals continue to prowl and kill, and the colony slowly bleeds to death under German attack, two men face the greatest challenge of their careers: Colonel Frederick Storey, once a famous hunter, and Richard Kendon, an Amnerican engineer caught in a war not his own.