A View of Vultures — Alan Scholefield

The ride to vengeance…

Sixteen-year-old Jamie Black arrives as a British convict at Cape of Good Hope.

Along with four of his companions, they plot to escape their imprisonment…They set out on the run still in manacles, but soon become separated when they sever Jamie's hand.

Nursed back to life by some friendly British, Jamie is fitted out with a steel claw.

Over the next few years Jamie pursues a new, simpler life; he matures and for the first time in his life he is respected.

However, his fellow convicts have not been idle. They've been busy raiding cattle and seeing that the crime is attributed to Stone Age Bushmen.

Tension heightens between communities.

Jamie saves a Bushmen named Stone-Axe, who becomes his Sancho Panza and who saves Jamie repeatedly when events take a turn for the worse.

Soon, Jamie is forced to choose between his old ways and his new, as the convicts wreak havoc and the Bushmen are forced farther north and the natives seek revenge…

A View of Vultures is a gory historical epic full of torture, murder and destruction.

Praise for A View of Vultures…

‘This is a bloody South African epic' â€" Kirkus Reviews

‘A rattling adventure story' - New Statesman

Alan Scholefield was born in 1931 in Cape Town, South Africa. After leaving university he became a journalist and travelled widely in southern and central Africa, Europe, and America. He now lives in Hampshire with his wife and has three daughters. Most famous for his Macrae and Silver series, Scholefield has also written other novels, including Venom, which was made into a film in 1981.