William Harrison bol vášnivý zberateľ starožitností a literárny pracovník. Založil Manxskú spoločnosť, ktorá sa venovala publikovaniu dokumentov týkajúcich sa ostrova Man. Jeho vlastné príspevky zahŕňali detailné bibliografické práce, zbierky miestnych prísloví a balád a historické záznamy. Harrisonov záujem o starožitnosti sa prejavil aj v jeho článkoch pre noviny.
It was 1854 when two very different men, English aristocrat John Hanning Speke and bold adventurer Sir Richard Francis Burton, embarked on the journey that was to alter the course of history. Their mission: to discover the true source of the Nile. They had the daring to brave the ravages of nature, vicious attacks by the Somali, and life-threatening illness. Their sheer courage and raw determination would be tested in a way civilization never could. Their story is an epic of triumph and tragedy, betrayal and mystery. It has fascinated the world for over one hundred years.
When the close confidante of the U.S. President is murdered in Africa, a rag-tag task force assembles to solve that crime & similar people killed evidently by cobra venom. Can a cadre of disparate govt. agencies headed up by a veteran contract operator & an offensive lower functionary succeed? Author Harrison has written several novels with an Africa here, a killer moves unimpeded into Nigeria, Egypt, & Zanzibar, fairly taunting law enforcement & the comic American opera set up to capture him. @The center of the task force is Charlie Hazo a.k.a. the Professor, who's survived a dozen swipes from death, & Peter Foxx a.k.a. the Little Buddha, whose noisy ambition & noisier dining habits preclude that "refined sexual act" he imagines himself capable of. Even after the task force falters in Africa, the Little Buddha's still manuvering for open access to the White House & an office @the & to acquire all that, he agrees to be the killer's next target. First published in 1981 in the shadow of Munich & Watergate, Savannah Blue is the tale of people succeeding despite themselves. Rounded out by Harrison's sparse, occasionally harsh (the lost, bewildered cop & the mamba attack) prose. No longer in print but worth the search.
Ce roman, comme le film du même titre, s'inspire de l'histoire réellement vécue par Thomas O. Murton. Ce dernier, en 1967, a tenté d'assainir et d'humaniser une ferme pénitentiaire dans l'Arkansas. Son entreprise lui a valu d'être renvoyé parce qu'il mettait en cause le système pénitentiaire et l'ordre social établi.
