Black Leopard, Red Wolf
core novel 2019 The Dark Star Trilogy
Record
| First published | 2019 |
|---|---|
| Original language |  EN |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 3.45 (31,554 ratings, collected 2026-08-26) |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780735220171 |
Synopsis
Black Leopard, Red Wolf is framed as an account given by a man called Tracker to interrogators holding him prisoner in the South Kingdom, describing a life built around his uncanny ability to track anyone once he has learned their scent. His story begins years earlier, when he leaves behind an abusive grandfather and returns to his birth tribe to find his father dead, and where he meets Leopard, a shapeshifter, and forms a close bond with a young tribesman named Kava; together they rescue mingi children, born with unusual traits or powers, who are sheltered by a healer known as the Sangoma. Years later, hired in the city of Malakal to find a boy abducted from a slain nobleman's household, Tracker assembles a mismatched expedition -- including Leopard, the river spirit Bunshi, and the formidable Sogolon, the Moon Witch -- to track the child through a landscape of warring kingdoms and supernatural danger.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Dark Star Trilogy
- Series: The Dark Star Trilogy core; position 1 of 2 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Marlon James
Notes
- From the series record (The Dark Star Trilogy): Two of three planned novels published so far.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings and are never conflated: a book's place in one says nothing about its place in the other.
- Publication order, within the series The Dark Star Trilogy: position 1 of 2: next Moon Witch, Spider King (2022)
Sources
- The Dark Star Trilogy publisher series page (Penguin Random House)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Leopard,_Red_Wolf
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