Animals
About this audiobook
When rhino poachers kill two of his fellow rangers in Kruger Park, South African Defense Force veteran Cobus Venter reaches his breaking point. Quitting his job, he embarks on a vigilante mission to take down the animal-trafficking syndicate from the inside. Meanwhile, in Florida, insurance investigator Randall Knight is called to a private roadside zoo, where a new tiger cub of suspect lineage brought a virus that wiped out all the zoo’s tigers. The disease is just one species jump away from erupting into a deadly global human pandemic. What starts as a simple insurance claim leads Knight to discover a shocking new evolution in the business of illicit animal trafficking. Both men’s journeys take them from the darkest corners of Southeast Asia to the VIP gambling rooms of Macau, where they must stay alive long enough to stop a vicious international triad from ending wildlife as we know it.
Animals is set in the world of global animal trafficking and follows converging story lines into a dark maze of corruption and organized crime, and through the journeys of the main characters, the novel explores the factors driving the exploitation and ruin of the natural world.
Though the story is fiction, the characters, locations, and plot points are almost entirely rooted in fact. They are the product of hundreds of conversations with everyone from Jane Goodall to the CIA, to Damien Mander (an ex-mercenary turned animal activist). To experience the issue firsthand, Will Staples took a month-long research trip spanning three continents and seven countries. The journey was a profoundly transformative, life-altering experience.
The author’s goal with this novel is to expose this issue to as many people as possible. To that end, all his income from this book will be donated to nonprofit organizations dedicated to protecting wildlife.
About the author
Will Staples is the creator of the upcoming Disney+ drama series The Right Stuff (based on the Tom Wolfe book). As a writer, he has also worked on Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, the upcoming movie Without Remorse (starring Michael B. Jordan), and the Jack Ryan and Shooter TV series. He has also worked on numerous video games, including the Rainbow Six and Need for Speed franchises, as well as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (which beat Avatar’s record for the biggest entertainment launch in history).
Dion Graham is a multiple Audie award–winning narrator and a critically acclaimed actor who has performed on Broadway, Off-Broadway, internationally, in films, and in several hit television series, including HBO's The Wire. His performances have been praised as thoughtful, compelling, vivid, and full of life.
