A Sinful Safari
Bedford Green, an art gallery owner in 1920s Greenwich Village, reluctantly agrees to accompany his beautiful assistant Sloane Smith on an African safari. Sloane hopes to prevent her rich uncle’s new gold-digger wife, Georgia, from making a fool of herself amongst the British aristocracy in Kenya. No such luck. Not long after a tipsy Georgia causes a scandal by helping the Prince of Wales destroy all of the gramophone records in a club during a party, she is found shot to death in the arms of her married lover. Though Bedford would just as soon escape from this all-too-sinful safari, he stays to clear Sloane’s uncle from a murder accusation. There’s name dropping aplenty, as Karen Blixen, Denys Finch Hatton, Beryl Markham, and Thelma Furness play minor roles in the story. The author touches upon sensitive issues like big game hunting and race relations without too much political correctness. Despite an overabundance of secondary characters, many of whom don’t feel distinct, Kilian’s novel is as chatty and entertaining as a Sunday morning gossip column.