Rift Valley

Rift Valley is a dramatic and suspenseful novel of a young Florida surgeon who goes on a hunting safari in British East Africa during the turbulent Mau Mau decade of the 50s and discovers much more than adventure and love.

Set in one of the world’s most exotic and dangerous locales, the Great Rift Valley, a scene of natural wonders, wild animals, and political turmoil, this is the story of Dr. Paul Bennett, a handsome and brilliant surgeon whose confidence is shattered by a circumstance wrought by his own poor judgement.

Undertaking the perilous safari in Kenya at the time of the Emergency—a bloody rebellion against British colonialism—Dr. Paul at last experiences healing for a deep psychic wound, as well as the love of a beautiful and fiercely independent woman.

The characters are masterfully drawn, each carrying their own demons of the past as they set out on the trip. The interplay between the hunters, natives, fauna, setting and circumstance is an elegantly woven tapestry of conflict, human behavior and perseverance.

Skillfully edited by preeminent author/editor, Ellis Amburn, Rift Valley engages from the start and intensifies non-stop. Mr. Amburn draws from is vast literary experience as he lays out the comparison to previous notable works, “. . .the story takes on the same excitement found in Michael Chichton’s “Congo,” Robert Ruark’s “Something of Value,” and John Master’s “Mogambo.” Because of its sensitive and compassionate yet brave protagonist, Rift Valley also recalls Ernest Hemingway’s safari stories “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.”. . . Thanks to the novel’s early passages set in a Florida operating room, and the blood-drenched African’ safari’s frequent need of Dr. Paul’s surgical skills, Rift Valley,” written by a doctor, is squarely in the tradition of medical fiction established by such bestselling author-doctors as Michael Crichton, Robin Cook and Frank G. Slaughter.”

Rift Valley is an all-encompassing novel which spans the fictional spectrum and cannot be buttonholed into any particular genre. It represents key elements drawn from action-adventure to romance to medical to historical.