Follow James on Twitter!

You can now follow James on Twitter!
You can Tweet him and your friends as he travels, flies and writes.
Click below to follow James today!

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HOT NEWS: James Gardner's The ZAMBEZI VENDETTA is AVAILABLE NOW

The ZAMBEZI VENDETTA

 NEW from the pen of James S. Gardner: The ZAMBEZI VENDETTA, It is Book Two of The Dark Continent Chronicles and is available at your bookstore and on Amazon.com.


The first book by Palm Beach’s resident adventure thriller author, James S. Gardner, commanded the lead on the Palm Beach book seller charts as the Number 1 Best-Seller. Now Gardner’s sizzling second book in The Dark Continent Chronicles series, The Zambezi Vendetta, promises to outperform the competition again!


For Rigby Croxford fans:
Rigby Croxford returns in this spine-chilling saga about the harrowing escape attempt by six American tourists caught in the middle of a bloody civil war in Africa. They are left with no choice but to brave the dark and deadly Zambezi River.
 
Find The Zambezi Vendetta and The Lion Killer (Book I of The ark Continent Chronicles) on Amazon.com and at fine bookstores near you.
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Who is James Gardner? A Personal Interview by The Coastal Star

Meet the man behind the story.

Find out who James S. Gardner is in this very personal interview by The Coastal Star.

Click Here To See the Interview!

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Endorsements for The Lion Killer: America's Best-Selling Author James Patterson

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Endorsements for The Lion Killer: Dan Jenkins

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The Lion KIller is Available On Kindle!

Want to read The Lion Killer wherever you are?
Try reading it on a Kindle by Amazon.  No matter where you are, you can buy The Lion Killer and download it to your Kindle.  With your Kindle you can be reading the book in a little over a minute.

Click Here to get your copy of The Lion Killer for Kindle

Need a Kindle? Click here to get one.

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James and Sir Harold Evans Signing Books Together at Parker Ladd Author Breakfast

James and Sir Harold (Harry) Evans (author of "My Paper Chase") sign books together at the Parker Ladd Author's Breakfast.

He gave a moving speech on the difficulties within the culture of modern Africa as he has observed them while visiting deepest Africa.  He fictionalizes those people and situations in his book, The Lion Killer.

Jame appears next at Lighthouse Center for The Arts in Tequesta, Florida.

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James to speak at Lighthouse Center for The Arts on "Visions of Africa"

James will be the featured speaker at the "Visions of Africa" art and culture exhibit at:

Lighthouse Center For The Arts in Tequesta Florida on Thursday,  February 25, 2010.  6 - 7:30 p.m.

Jim will give one of his compelling lectures on culture and the Human Condition in Africa.  He will also present several pieces of hand made art that he has collected during his twenty-five visits to deep Africa.

A reception follows during which James will be signing copies of his latest book, The Lion Killer.  You can also sample traditional South African foods and wines.

R.S.V.P. Lighthouse Center for The Arts at 561.746.3101
 
We look forward to seeing you there!
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The Lion Killer is #1 Seller

The Palm Beach Daily News and Main Street News report that James Gardner's hot, lush adventure thriller, The Lion Killer  has reached Number One on their Best-Seller charts!

Go to Amazon.com, your favorite bookseller or
http://www.thelionkiller.net/
and get your copy of this exciting best-seller Today!

What Happens When The Haitians Leave Home?

What Impact Will Haitian Earthquake Refugees Have On Its Neighbors?

Many Haitians will leave their island homes –or lack thereof, after the earthquake dust settles and the emergency relief dwindles.  We’ve seen this story before with other island states that have been devastated by natural or manmade disasters.

It is my most ardent hope that they’ll wait for the mountainous waves to stop rolling down unimpeded from the North Atlantic and the Gulfstream to become more user-friendly.  We know what the tragedy looks and feels like when desperate people try to escape to America lacking adequate resources.  But make no mistake about it, they’re coming.  The mass exodus will be underway in earnest around April.  The grumbling about the illegal aliens hasn’t started yet, but it’s about to happen, yet again.

Some Haitians will use the Bahamas as a temporary stopover during their clandestine migration to the United States.  Most of the real estate developments in the Bahamas have gone bust.  There are no jobs and not as many tourists.  This time their landings will be thwarted by the usually easygoing Bahamians.

But, what greater tragedy awaits?

Click the link below to read the rest of my op-ed article on the Haitian earthquake problem and my experiences with Haitian refugees.

Click Here--->Op-ed: The Problem of the Haitian Earthquake and Refugees

Click "Comments" below this post to sound off on this issue.

--James







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An Autopsy of Zimbabwe

     How can a country that in 1980 was called the bread-basket of Africa be reduced to a basket-case in 30 years? The same country that boasted about its 80% literacy rate now has 82% unemployment.  In 1996, I bought a case of Zambezi beer for 130 Zimbabwe dollars, which was equal to 10 US dollars.  Last year the same case of beer cost a staggering 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollars.  The Zimbabwe economy makes the Weimar Republic in the 1930s look like present day Switzerland.

     My first visit to what was Rhodesia and is now Zimbabwe was in 1968.  Robert Gabriel Mugabe had already served four years of an eleven year prison sentence.  His crime was making subversive speeches.  Twelve years later, when Mugabe was sworn in as the newly elected President of Zimbabwe, he was seen as a bearer of hope for Africans.  To the uninformed, Mugabe was not unlike the other iron-fisted leaders who wrestled control from the men whose European ancestors settled in Africa.  But this was no ordinary thug seizing power by way of the usual military coup; this was a soft-spoken diminutive man who had earned seven college degrees. Zimbabwe’s economy flourished under Mugabe’s leadership during the early 1980s, and then something went terribly wrong.

     After making 25 trips to Africa over a span of 40 years, I find I have more questions than answers, but there is one undeniable fact:  In 1980, 300,000 whites controlled 99% of the Zimbabwe’s wealth. In a country of 12 million people, this inequity was unsustainable.

     The centerpiece of Zimbabwe’s economic destruction has been Mugabe’s confiscation of the white-owned farms.  The mass exodus of 250,000 white Zimbabweans has left the country devoid of capital and expertise.  Unable to find work, Zimbabwe’s skilled black workers are also leaving.
 

     Was reparation Mugabe’s hidden agenda, or did unseen circumstances force his hand? It’s difficult to understand the octogenarian President’s motives.  He is an enigma protected by the tight security that has undoubtedly spared him from assassination.

     Africans are plagued by an obsession with ethnicity.  The European adventurists who carved up the Dark Continent used mountain ranges and rivers to mark the boundaries of the land they subjugated.  Peoples with vast cultural differences were forced into coexistences.  The conqueror’s greed and miscalculations have caused genocides and civil wars.  The Hutus killing 800,000 Tutsis and the genocide taking place in the Darfur are prime examples.

     Mugabe is a member of the majority Shona tribe.  One of his first orders was to send the Fifth Brigade accompanied by their North Korean advisors into the heart of Matabeleland, where they massacred 20,000 members of the minority Ndebele tribe.  It should be noted that most of Zimbabwe was at one time controlled by the more aggressive Ndebele Nation, until their king, Lobengula, sold it to John Cecil Rhodes.

     At first, Mugabe courted the white farmers, but when they sided with the Matabele, he was said to be outraged.  The farmers had become his scapegoats.  Just as Adolph Hitler used the Jew and Idi Amin used the Indian, despots need to fabricate enemies to blame for the ills of their countries.
The final nail in Mugabe’s economic coffin was when the United States and Great Britain withdrew their financial support for reimbursing the white farmers for the land Mugabe was repossessing.  How could he pay the people who were keeping him in power?  His only option was to give them more farms.   This made the downward spiral, fait accompli.
 

     To his defenders, Robert Mugabe is seen as their George Washington.  He is the black man who brought down the white elitists.  His detractors say black Zimbabweans fared better under Ian Smith’s reign.  One thing’s for certain, life for the average white or black Zimbabwean has been hellish.

      What happens to Zimbabwe after Mugabe?  During the last fifty years, guilt-ridden countries have sent one-trillion US dollars in foreign-aid to Africa, yet Africans are now the poorest of the poor.  Massive aid will make dishonest men rich, but it won’t resurrect Zimbabwe.  Rebuilding the country’s economy will take more time than it took to destroy it. The eco-tourist infrastructure has atrophied, but it can be revitalized.  Some say the country’s mineral wealth has been squandered.  Mugabe’s opponents say the money is stashed in his Swiss bank accounts.  The real economic future of Zimbabwe lies in her fallowed farms.  The country’s subsistence farmers cannot manage large scale farms. Running mega-farms is a complicated business that can only be learned by on-the-job training.  The quickest way to kick-start Zimbabwe’s agricultural base would be to entice the white farmers to come home.  Asking them to return without absolute assurances would be illogical.  These guarantees will have to come from countries outside of Africa.  To advocate a return to 1980 would be absurd, but is there room for compromise?  If there isn’t, generations of Zimbabweans will live in poverty.
 

     Someday, the fifty-three countries of Africa may have to be reapportioned into one hundred new countries.  Although Zimbabwe does have tribal differences, it is far less diverse than most African countries.  If the United States was successful in helping rebuild Zimbabwe, it would be a great endowment for America.
 

     After the industrialized countries of the world squander their own raw materials, they will look to Africa as the place to obtain natural resources.  China knows the success of replacing the United States as the next economic juggernaut lies in the strategic minerals and oil found in Africa.  It’s not in our best economic interests to let China’s influence go unchecked.
 

     I have faith in the people of Zimbabwe.  Africans are superb survivalists, it they weren’t we wouldn’t exist.  After all, human evolution started someplace in Southern Africa.

     I invite your thoughts.
                James Gardner

Buy The Lion Killer on Amazon.com now!

James Gardner Compared to Dashiell Hammett

James Gardner's writing style has been compared to the intense and popular writing style of influential American author Dashiell Hammett, whose writings include The Maltese Falcon (and character Sam Spade), The Thin Man, and Red Harvest. 

James Edstrom of Times Square Gossip says of James Gardner's writing, "Gardner’s story telling approach follows in the path of Dashiell Hammett.  “Life is disposable; the Land is beautiful and the search is fatal.”

Gardner's The Lion Killer is an adventure thriller that takes the reader on hard twists and turns through the minds of desperate people in desperate situations where money, avarice, lust, passion, romance and deep-seated, disturbed thinking propel the characters through this jaw-dropping adventure.  Gardner's extensive personal experiences in Africa and intimate knowledge of its people people fuel the personalities and the action in this great read.

Watch The Lion Killer book trailer at www.thelionkiller.net and on Youtube.

START THE ADVENTURE TODAY!

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On The Rise: James Gardner's Popular Book Trailer Video for The Lion Killer Being Watched More Frequently

The popular Book Trailer for James Gardner's The Lion Killer on the web is being watched more often.  The rise in popularity follows literary agent's insight.

The Lion Killer is an extraordinary and exciting adventure thriller with a major hero at the helm.  The book trailer video on the Internet is receiving a rapidly growing number of views.   Its popularity seems to echo the words of the literary agent Marianne Strong who recently said, "This book is going through the roof.  The Washington Post and the Washington Times are both already reviewing it.  I think this book will be a bestseller."

If you haven't seen The Lion Killer book trailer, see it HERE, now.

If you haven't got your own copy of the book get it HERE and  

Start The Adventure Today!

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"Imagine John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart and Harrison Ford rolled into a single character."

That's an accurate descripton of the main character in James Gardner's new book, The Lion Killer, as described by Douglas Harrington of Hamptons.Com.   This is not a simple book about men hunting lions on safari, but a thrilling and gripping tale of men being hunted by men.

The main character of the story, Rigby Croxford, is a man of heroic intensity, romance, down-to-earth skill and cunning, and he is fiercely powered by his passion for his homeland.  He is truly a modern hero and a man for our age.

If you like the great men of adventure like John Wayne, Humphrey Bogart and Harrison Ford, then you will love Rigby Croxford and you'll experience every moment of the thrill, fear, intrigue, desperation and action when you join him on the adventure.

Start the adventure today!

Get your signed, limited First Edition of The Lion Killer here.

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Time Square Gossip Get's The Lead on The Lion Killer

James Edstrom's Times Square Gossip column got the inside scoop when James launched his book, The Lion Killer, at a fancy who's-who soiree at Central Park Zoo in New York. 

Many of entertainment and publishing's most glamorous personalities turned out to help James get his new book --and the book series off the ground and into the hands of his eager readers.

Check out the photos here!
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