Kiboko

From the quarter deck of an English steam frigate two bodies are sited, the bodies are those of an old man and a woman, possibly jettisoned cargo from a suspected slave ship. Angered by the effrontery of the escaping ship still in view against the roiling waves, the captain of the English frigate takes chase, determined to bring to justice the man he believes is responsible for the outrage ― Thomas Rutledge, the Yankee captain of a fast and elusive American clipper, the Flying Witch. Thomas Rutledge is a veteran of the Confederate Navy who witnessed his home and family destroyed by a Reconstruction mob and became so embittered that he turned to the slave trade as a kind of revenge. When his friend, the powerful Arab trader, Binbin, tells him of the inland native empire of Buntoro with its stores of ivory ready for exploitation, he joins Binbin's venture. In Buntoro Rutledge meets the missionary, Kitty, a spirited product of Abolitionist Boston, and learns how little he really knows of native civilization.In his first work of fiction, Daniel Mannix fuses these elements, and his love of Africa, into a look at the complexities of good and evil. It is an epic adventure of Africa during her wildest days.