Cloudburst: A Jack Courtney Adventure

Cloudburst by Wilbur Smith and Chris Walking

This book is about a boy called Jack and his friends Amelia and Xander and they go with his parents to the Democratic Republic of the Congo because Jack’s parents are nature conservationists. They are going because Jack’s parents want to stop illegal mining. While Jack’s parents are at their conferences, they decide Jack and his friends should go on a safari trip to the rainforest. Jack and his friends think that this is going to be fun until they find out that Jack’s self-centred, ignorant cousin is coming with them. Jack doesn’t like his cousin Caleb because he is annoying and always trying to show off. The safari they go on is with a guide called Innocent.

On the first day of the safari, they go out to look for chimpanzees and after a long day they finally see them. On their way back to camp they encounter some very dangerous armed poachers. When the poachers finally let them go, they return to camp but Caleb isn’t happy, so he insists that they go to find the poachers’ camp so that they can report them to the authorities. This goes very successfully and then the next day they go on another trek to find silverback gorillas and then when they find them they stay away from them (so the gorillas don’t know they are there and so they don’t attack) but because Caleb is a show off he approaches one of the male gorillas and waves his machete in its face.  The gorilla gets angry and charges at Caleb who accidentally stabs Innocent with his machete and kills him. Caleb is horrified.

Then they leave the rainforest to go back to their hotel. This is when the tragedy happens. Jacks finds that his parents have been kidnapped and there is a $75,000 ransom to set them free. To prove it was his parents they even sent a specimen of his Mums hair attached the ransom note. This was no joke.

Does he get his parents back?

Does he pay the ransom?

We give it 50 stars. If you like adventure, mystery and action you have to read this book!