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Maneater
Harte County, Georgia, sheriff Grady Brickhouse has been able to keep the peace in a sleepy corner forest of the Appalachian Trail, until an unlikely and fearsome, full-grown, man-eating Bengal tiger finds its way into his jurisdiction and Brickhouse must find a way to kill the tiger before it kills another citizen. Reprint.
547 pages, Paperback
First published April 30, 1998
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
May 5, 2014
So. Ich habe im Urlaub mal wieder ein dickes Buch gelesen. Diesmal über ein Thema, das mir sehr am Herzen liegt, nämlich menschenfressende Tiger!
Vor gar nicht langer Zeit waren Killerraubtiere noch eine größere Gefahr für uns Zweibeiner.
Legendäre Bestien wie der Leopard von Rudraprayag, die Tigerin von Champawat, die Löwen von Njombo oder das Nilkrokodil Gustave entwickelten einen gefährlichen Appetit und verspeisten jeweils zwischen 100 und 1500 Menschen.
Doch das gefährlichste Raubtier ist (und bleibt?) der Mensch. Sein Vormarsch zerstört Lebensraum und Leben dieser majestätischen Ungetüme und mit Ihnen auch die schaurigen Lagerfeuergeschichten.
Gut, dass es noch Romane wie Maneater gibt, die weiterhin den Urkonflikt unserer Spezies, den Kampf zwischen Mensch und Biest, aufleben lassen.
Denn wie heißt es so schön im Buch: Man needs something to fear besides himself!
Und darum geht’s: In den dunklen Wälder der Appalachian Mountains bricht ein menschenfressender Tiger aus der Gefangenschaft einer Schaustellergruppe aus und terrorisiert die Nachbarschaft.
Als die Behörden keine adäquate Antwort auf die Gefahr finden, bietet die britische Regierung an, ihren erfahrensten Raubtierjäger aus dem Ruhestand zu holen und auf die Bestie anzusetzen.
Doch das Tier ist eine mysteriöse Verbindung mit einem halbwilden Jungen aus den Bergen eingegangen.
Mehr kann sich doch wirklich nicht wünschen!
Und es fängt auch vielversprechend an. Nach einer kurzen Vorgeschichte im indischen Himalaya-Gebiet, beginnt der titelgebende Tiger schon bald seine Schreckensherrschaft in den USA.
Mit gutem Tempo schreitet die Geschichte voran. Der Tiger jagt die Menschen, die Behörden jagen den Tiger und die Presse jagt die Behörden.
Dazu gibt’s eine Handvoll sympathischer Charaktere wie den Sheriff und die tierliebende Jägerlegende Jim Graham.
Der Handlungsstrang um den an Mogli erinnernden Natur-Jungen Roy (bestimmt nach Siegfried und Roy benannt!) war zwar nicht uninteressant, hat aber die Geschichte etwas durcheinander gebracht.
So verliert Warner im letzten Drittel leider den Fokus und schließt seinen Wälzer mit einem leicht unstimmigen Showdown ab.
Fazit – Hello maneating Kitty!
Einerseits fehlt der Geschichte streckenweise der rote Faden, anderseits ist eine der zentralen Figuren ein menschenfressenden Tiger! Somit ist für reichlich Abenteuer und Nervenkitzel gesorgt.
Glücklicherweise verzichtet Warner auf Schwarz-Weiß-Malerei. Hier geht es nicht um machomäßige Großwildjagd oder einen Rachefeldzug gegen eine seelenlose Bestie.
Jack Warner bezeichnet seinen haarigen Protagonisten vielmehr als Nature’s noblest creation und setzt dem bengalischen Tiger mit Maneater ein seitenstarkes Denkmal. Beeindruckende Tiere, gutes Genrebuch. Für Tigerfans. Roaaar!
Wertung 2,8/5
awesomatik Kuriosum
Der legendäre britische Jäger, Naturschützer und Autor Jim Corbett lieferte die Inspiration für den im Roman jagenden James Graham.
Und hier noch ein Abenteuerfilm-Tipp zum Thema: Der Geist und die Dunkelheit von Stephen Hopkins. Eine Hollywood Adaptation über die wahre Geschichte um die Maneater von Tsavo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-QhwC...
Mehr Rezensionen und abenteuerlichen Content auf http://awesomatik.com
December 17, 2012
It's a shame this book has such a cheesy cover and large print - it is truly excellent! Warner offers up a sort of Jaws on the land - substituting the tiger for the great white shark. What really sets the book apart is the strange relationship with Roy and the tiger - it is absolutely fascinating! It reads like a movie, with a lot of clear visual imagery and a fair amount of dialogue. Unfortunately, I suppose it would be too difficult to actually translate this onto the silver screen without ruining it, which really is a shame...
Still, it is an excellent book and I would most certainly read another book by this author! Despite some surprisingly sad moments, and its rather gruesome premise, the novel is a surprisingly beautiful story. I liked the tiger's "name" too... It’s a very fun and fast-paced read!
Still, it is an excellent book and I would most certainly read another book by this author! Despite some surprisingly sad moments, and its rather gruesome premise, the novel is a surprisingly beautiful story. I liked the tiger's "name" too... It’s a very fun and fast-paced read!
March 30, 2021
It should be 5 stars!
This is a great novel. Unfortunately, the Kindle edition is marred by extremely poor editing/proof reading which I found to be quite distracting. I would have given it a 3, but the story is just too good. I'm not going to go into any great detail except to say that generally, the story is about what happens when a Bengal tiger gets loose near a small Georgia town in the Appalachians. The main character is based on the great conservationist Col. Jim Corbet, who, around the turn of the century, protected the people of India from maneating tigers and leopards. There are several books about and by him. Try it, you won't be disappointed.
This is a great novel. Unfortunately, the Kindle edition is marred by extremely poor editing/proof reading which I found to be quite distracting. I would have given it a 3, but the story is just too good. I'm not going to go into any great detail except to say that generally, the story is about what happens when a Bengal tiger gets loose near a small Georgia town in the Appalachians. The main character is based on the great conservationist Col. Jim Corbet, who, around the turn of the century, protected the people of India from maneating tigers and leopards. There are several books about and by him. Try it, you won't be disappointed.
December 16, 2019
This is Why I Read
Adventure coupled with heart and brains is what keeps me going long after the sun has set and the house has gone quiet. This book has all of the right elements, and it has been crafted to present the reader with the challenge of all great stories...Do you leave it unfinished? Or do you forge ahead until you’ve experienced what the author has prepared for you? I can’t recommend this book enough.
Adventure coupled with heart and brains is what keeps me going long after the sun has set and the house has gone quiet. This book has all of the right elements, and it has been crafted to present the reader with the challenge of all great stories...Do you leave it unfinished? Or do you forge ahead until you’ve experienced what the author has prepared for you? I can’t recommend this book enough.
December 19, 2019
Enjoyable Read!
This was a very good read. It starts with an accident, thus unleashing a 500 lb Siberian Tiger in rural Georgia. It starts right away consuming humans. A young backwoods boy who has never been to school meets this Tiger face to face and is not eaten. They become “friends “. The state of Georgia finally gets help trying to stop this Tiger from a retired British Army colonel who has killed many man eaters in India. Verizon interesting.
This was a very good read. It starts with an accident, thus unleashing a 500 lb Siberian Tiger in rural Georgia. It starts right away consuming humans. A young backwoods boy who has never been to school meets this Tiger face to face and is not eaten. They become “friends “. The state of Georgia finally gets help trying to stop this Tiger from a retired British Army colonel who has killed many man eaters in India. Verizon interesting.
June 24, 2020
Wow
I purchased this book thinking it was probably in the line of the Jim Corbett books I read as a young kid. Never dreamed it was set in the south of the U.S. Still I thought it was very well written and extremely engrossing.
I purchased this book thinking it was probably in the line of the Jim Corbett books I read as a young kid. Never dreamed it was set in the south of the U.S. Still I thought it was very well written and extremely engrossing.
January 21, 2018
Great Book!!
Very well written, with a good pace. The Colonel was a great character as was the brave young boy . I would recommend this book, very entertaining.
Very well written, with a good pace. The Colonel was a great character as was the brave young boy . I would recommend this book, very entertaining.
March 2, 2022
Man versus animal.
March 9, 2022
Excellent writing.
May 3, 2011
It had been a long time since I read Jim Corbett and Kenneth Anderson going in the jungles of India and shooting rogue animals. Of special interest were their encounters with leopards and tigers, dreaded man-eaters who craved human blood in the dead of the night or stark daylight.
'Maneater' (also published as 'Shikar' in another edition) was lying on my shelves since a wrong time in the pile of books that I will perhaps never willingly read and the inspiration to read this came from an amazing documentary on Discovery some days back. This book starts with an amazing flashback of a man-eating tiger called slashfoot (called so because of his deformed pugmarks) in the Indian jungles, who is a daredevil and hunts humans at any time of the day. The chapter ends and a new one begins in present day Georgia, where an illegal party of animal organisers is transferring a caged royal Bengal tiger in a van. And ultimately when the van falls in a ditch, the driver realises the tiger has jumped out. A couple of days later the tiger makes his first prey, Lanelle Jackson, a woman who is out on delivery. The tiger now roams the dense forests of Appalachian mountains. Where tigers are unheard of, this mystery animal soon becomes a force to fear, almost Satan-like. With depleting herbivores like boars and deer, the tiger soon starts searching for easy prey in the form of careless human beings.
And then as the death tool rises and the media starts putting pressure, the sheriff of Harte country, Grady Brickhouse starts shaking in his pants. He tries everything with support from the governor and even some untalented gunmen and the military but to no avail. The tiger outsmarts them all and even managers to make prey of the very people who are out hunting it. And then comes old Jim Graham, who's been modeled on Corbet as a God-like hunter from India in his earlier days. Graham has retired and his health is failing and amidst doubts on his ability to hunt the man-eater, he does manage to trail the tiger and study it yet he does not seem to be making any progress when it comes to hunting it down. All this till Graham manages to find out about the bond between the tiger and a small boy named Roy, who lives on the outskirts of the forest with his mentally challenged mother. From hereon, the story gets interesting as Roy is befriended by both hunters, Graham and the tiger. The thing to be seen is that will Graham's last hunt be successful or will the tiger, who resembles slashfoot (whom Graham's father had hunted down or it was believed so!) will make him pay for his decision.The small boy is unsure whom he should support and aid because it means that one of his friends would die. The way his character has been handled has been a revelation.
Warner writes in a simple narrative, taking care to introduce even the victims and their motivation to be in that place where the tiger would soon walk on. The dialogue seems draggy at times between characters that actually don't matter to the story. Somehow it reminded be a bit of Benchley's 'JAWS' but Warner has his own unique style that works for the story. The concept is definitely great. We have read about man-eaters in India where a tiger or a leopard could easily wolf down over two hundred (official) individuals in its career as a man-eater but a tiger in America! Sounds fascinating. Couple with good research, Warner makes an impressive debut and the blurbs on the book justify the praise. A great beginning and a great ending, somehow tend to make you forget the draggy middle that puffs up the book to at least a hundred pages more. Overall, it definitely makes for an amazing adventure novel, definitely under-rated. I would go with a 4/5 for this strongly suspenseful novel.
'Maneater' (also published as 'Shikar' in another edition) was lying on my shelves since a wrong time in the pile of books that I will perhaps never willingly read and the inspiration to read this came from an amazing documentary on Discovery some days back. This book starts with an amazing flashback of a man-eating tiger called slashfoot (called so because of his deformed pugmarks) in the Indian jungles, who is a daredevil and hunts humans at any time of the day. The chapter ends and a new one begins in present day Georgia, where an illegal party of animal organisers is transferring a caged royal Bengal tiger in a van. And ultimately when the van falls in a ditch, the driver realises the tiger has jumped out. A couple of days later the tiger makes his first prey, Lanelle Jackson, a woman who is out on delivery. The tiger now roams the dense forests of Appalachian mountains. Where tigers are unheard of, this mystery animal soon becomes a force to fear, almost Satan-like. With depleting herbivores like boars and deer, the tiger soon starts searching for easy prey in the form of careless human beings.
And then as the death tool rises and the media starts putting pressure, the sheriff of Harte country, Grady Brickhouse starts shaking in his pants. He tries everything with support from the governor and even some untalented gunmen and the military but to no avail. The tiger outsmarts them all and even managers to make prey of the very people who are out hunting it. And then comes old Jim Graham, who's been modeled on Corbet as a God-like hunter from India in his earlier days. Graham has retired and his health is failing and amidst doubts on his ability to hunt the man-eater, he does manage to trail the tiger and study it yet he does not seem to be making any progress when it comes to hunting it down. All this till Graham manages to find out about the bond between the tiger and a small boy named Roy, who lives on the outskirts of the forest with his mentally challenged mother. From hereon, the story gets interesting as Roy is befriended by both hunters, Graham and the tiger. The thing to be seen is that will Graham's last hunt be successful or will the tiger, who resembles slashfoot (whom Graham's father had hunted down or it was believed so!) will make him pay for his decision.The small boy is unsure whom he should support and aid because it means that one of his friends would die. The way his character has been handled has been a revelation.
Warner writes in a simple narrative, taking care to introduce even the victims and their motivation to be in that place where the tiger would soon walk on. The dialogue seems draggy at times between characters that actually don't matter to the story. Somehow it reminded be a bit of Benchley's 'JAWS' but Warner has his own unique style that works for the story. The concept is definitely great. We have read about man-eaters in India where a tiger or a leopard could easily wolf down over two hundred (official) individuals in its career as a man-eater but a tiger in America! Sounds fascinating. Couple with good research, Warner makes an impressive debut and the blurbs on the book justify the praise. A great beginning and a great ending, somehow tend to make you forget the draggy middle that puffs up the book to at least a hundred pages more. Overall, it definitely makes for an amazing adventure novel, definitely under-rated. I would go with a 4/5 for this strongly suspenseful novel.
December 8, 2014
I read this extraordinary book once before
I enjoyed it just as much this time. It makes me look over my shoulder and think what if a tiger was loose in the woods near my home? How would it be dealt with? Mr Warner showed us what it would be like to be the hunter and the prey, both human and animal.
I enjoyed it just as much this time. It makes me look over my shoulder and think what if a tiger was loose in the woods near my home? How would it be dealt with? Mr Warner showed us what it would be like to be the hunter and the prey, both human and animal.
April 26, 2020
Nail biting book from beginning to end. I look forward to any sequels Jack Warner might write dealing with the fate of the little boy involved in the life and death of this Bengal Tiger. Just one thing, though, while Bengal Tigers do roar, they do not purr....
July 11, 2008
Escaped tiger in rural Georgia. I really enjoyed it, actually.
April 7, 2017
Great suspense, Great adventure
A very well written book. It keeps you in suspense, and is extremely entertaining.
So, what happens when a Bengal Tiger is loose in South eastern mountains of the UNITED STATES?
You need to read the book and see.
I highly recommend this book.
A very well written book. It keeps you in suspense, and is extremely entertaining.
So, what happens when a Bengal Tiger is loose in South eastern mountains of the UNITED STATES?
You need to read the book and see.
I highly recommend this book.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews