It's on the prowl and it's no pussycat. Nobody is safe. A deadly black panther roams leafy England in a fast-paced thriller with a predatory twist. The dense wooded hills of London's Stockbroker Belt are home to those who make a killing on the financial markets, but now a predator of a different kind is on the loose. Wounded by a drunken shooting party on a Russian billionaire's country estate, an escaped big cat begins to strike back at its unwitting attackers. One-by-one they are picked off. Some people believe the beast is a spirit of the forest incarnate sent to destroy those who desecrate ancient woodland, others that it is merely doing what big cats do on occasion: stalk and kill its hunters. In the ultra-rich county of Mid-Surrey, dog warden is not a job many people respect. Rosie Flinn wants to prove them wrong. It's an ambition that will change her life. Faith and Henry Olembe, Ghanaian servants to a wealthy couple, understand the silent ways of the panther and fear a dark, supernatural force is at work. Police detective Bob Coulston thinks nothing of the sort. Once mocked in the press because he claimed big cats live in the wilds of Britain, Coulston has never seen the beast, only its tracks, and the deer carcasses it leaves in its trail. When the panther slaughters one of its tormentors live on national radio, this unlikely foursome combines in an attempt to achieve what the British Army, the police, and hundreds of beer-swilling bounty hunters cannot do. They set out to track down the man-eater before it kills again. Their pursuit leads them from secret druids' grove and medieval knight's tomb to abandoned urban landscape now colonised by wildlife. Rosie and her new friends corner the big cat in an empty mall, but who is the hunter and who is the hunted? Does it possess supernatural powers? Before their ordeal is over, they have to find answers to their questions and to one more. Does the big cat hunt alone?
About the Author: Jack Churchill is the pen name adopted by Martin Belderson to avoid confusion between his fiction, documentary films and non-fiction books. Trained at the BBC as a director, he has made more than thirty full-length documentary films, mostly in the fields of natural history, science and adventure sport. During that time, he has been charged by rhinos, chased by elephants, been caught up in sea-battles, filmed in the Hot Zone of an Ebola Fever outbreak, fallen off mountains, and once trod on a sleeping bushmaster viper. He regards himself as very lucky to be alive. Along the way, Martin has also won quite a few awards and nominations for his films, screenplays, and short stories. He is attempting to use the recent digital convergence of the creative arts to weave writing, graphic design, film-making, and drama production into a single career. It's horribly complicated. If it fails, he plans to go back to one of his first jobs: selling potatoes door-to-door. It might be easier. For more information about the author's encounters with big cats, plus videos, details of the cover art, information on possible big cat sightings in Britain, and much more, go to the Big Cat page (http: //www.4winds-productions.com/big-cat.html)