***** Outrageously Heartbreaking Justice —- Review by Rox Burkey
Dan Fletcher peels back the layers of Kenya’s doorway to the international poaching of elephants for their tusks and black rhinoceros for their horns. Vividly portraying the horrific plight of these creatures is masterfully crafted within a fictional framework from the perspective of Kenyan Wildlife Service workers. Every word brings readers and listeners deeper into the environment where wild animals trying to survive despite greed, power, politics, and societal turmoil—every sense is critically aware.
Each person in this complex story is depicted with distinctive characteristics integral to this thriller. David Nbeke is a brave Kenyan ranger who suffered hardships as a child, making him more committed to helping the animals. While on patrol, he discovers a baby elephant surrounded by his violently massacred family. The baby elephant is transported to an elephant sanctuary for treatment. David marshals his small group of rangers to locate and disrupt the poachers. His unorthodox yet logical approach to the situation illustrates his passion. When checking on the baby elephant, he finds himself drawn to the vet from Ireland, Caitlyn. Their evolving relationship creates an unexpected thread and threat to this tale.
David sets out on a quest to find who is at fault. He keeps his information close to the vest as he uncovers clues and innuendoes that mismatch multiple situations. Finding out how much he can do with limited resources is fascinating. His survival is due to his tenacity and wit—relatable. Mr. Fletcher’s Dawn of the Deception shines a spotlight on an evil that needs to get stopped before these creatures go from endangered to extinct.
Pat Devon, hailing from South Africa, delivers a flawless performance in his narration. The various character accents, reading inflections, and acting skills of Mr. Devon create a hauntingly memorable experience for the listener. Thriller fans will be transported to Kenya with every sight and sound, keeping listeners on edge to the rollercoaster ending.
Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Devon make a perfect pair for Dawn of Deception, Part 1, with enthusiastic anticipation for Part 2. Congrats.
About the Author
Fletch—Bali-based British writer from Leeds, England.
Left for Spain aged 22 in 2011, writing ‘Jackboot Britain’, thence relocating to Thailand in January 2012, working as an amateur freelance reporter. A move to Bali, Indonesia came in August 2014; ‘The Acid Diary’ followed in December, and two more books thereafter… and after disaster, relief, torture, betrayal and mayhem: a pandemic in the palm-shade of paradise, elsewhere. Three pandemictime years in Pha-ngan produced a short story anthology, and the book “Wolves Eat Lambs”; then as of xmas 2022, Fletch is volunteering in the Ukraine war.
See “Surreal Dreamscapes: Mind-Bending Mayhem in Absurdistan, The Fletch Anthology 2011-22″… each story compiled from 22-33.
From writing a screenplay in Ibiza with a ‘music producer’ (RIP) whilst living with a ‘BBC television director’; departing to write a documentary in Thailand; the fightsport journalism years, flag tied to the mast of m€th-fried mentalists in a den of Phuket lunacy; embedded early with (then banned from) the future world’s largest fight promotion, ONE Championship; charity fights and childlike juvenilia; general spoofs and lampoonery; choosing to be a poor man with pals in Indonesia rather than a rich and miserable man in Singapore; moving to Indo with the Leone Brothers in 2014; the Bali MMA years; the Rise and Ráp3 of Canggu; Kedungu and the Pigstone rice paddy panoramas; all the rascals and rogues in that rich tapestry; romantic omnishambles, face-melting, melon-twisting mayhem and misadventures, dead friends and lovers, disaster, relief; psychophysical annihilation and treachery; earthquakes and landslides, eruptions, tsunami alerts; crashes and jackings, lynchings and chaos—all the life and death in those surreal dreamscapes of that endless second, into which time collapsed…
I even squeezed in a few posthumous ‘Pandemic in Paradise’ tales, of Predatory Pigs in the Palm-shade, ‘Holding Moments By The Stem’, ‘survival tribes’ and shrinking, peripheral worlds; two or three lavishly illustrated stories to share round the campfire. Post-2019 is unreliably narrated, with new cognitive faculties, but hey—someone should laugh. Or chuckle… grin… smirk?
‘Write as if posthumously’ is a fine old maxim, and here it feels unnervingly appropriate: the entire Palm-shaded Pandemic in Paradise is a ghostly post-vita experience for the Stumbling Swayze.
Buy my book, and feel comfortable and witty at parties, smell fresh, sweat fragrantly and taste sweet, as doors open, ropes part, champagne supernovas form in the cosmoi and the moist magic of warm wet flesh envelopes your loins, while sexually charismatic nymphomaniacs chase you down the street like Hard Day’s fookin Night. This book will free you to no longer make foolish grammatical errors, with more pain and poetry, immersive beauty, terror, terrible power, ugliness, wisdom, idiocy, violence, sex and drug-fuelled bedlam than Oliver Reed going mad in a crack lounge. Dunk your cookies in my milk and let ’em soak on the rap. One Fletch word is worth a thousand pictures: click, buy n’ bang on.
