Drums and Dragons: A Field Guide to Mokele-mbembe and Other Living Dinosaurs in Africa

Legends of living dinosaurs in Africa have inspired the fiction of writers such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but amateur monster hunter Walter Spink takes these tales of African dragons seriously. After failing to prove the existence of dragons with partial remains, Walter and his reluctant assistant, Matt Preston, travel to Africa, where they encounter a series of live dragons including pterosaurs called sasabonsam, Styracosaurus-like horned ngoubou, and Brontosaurus-like mokele-mbembe. Walter decides to live in the African bush and study his newfound dragons’ behavior in the wild, but conducting his research proves more challenging than it sounds. If Walter does not get himself killed by turning his back on a carnivorous sasabonsam, the other dragons might still trample him under foot. To make matters worse, a wily witchdoctor will do anything to chase Walter away from the dragons-including cursing him. And even if fetish magic does not stop him, a big game hunter who’s heard rumors of living dinosaurs might end Walter’s work by shooting his research subjects back to extinction.