Stephen Jaquiery reviews the latest hunting-themed books.
Lester, a detective sergeant with the Christchurch police, would be advised not to confuse his court reports with his hunting manuscripts as I'm guessing the latter only contains shades of the truth.
Lester has gathered the best yarns from his previous five books and added a few more to the mix to produce an easy-reading and highly entertaining publication.
I'm a great fan of Lester's writing, but perhaps that's because we both shun too much political correctness, enjoy a laugh at some-one else's expense and love our great outdoors without being too green.
Tony Orman has strong opinions; he favours a compulsory youth training scheme to lower crime and set our young people on the right track, maintains that possums will decline naturally if not poisoned by 1080 and leaves the best stags in the bush to spread their genes while instead shooting inferior specimens for the larder.
Still hunting in his 70s, Orman recounts shooting his first deer and numerous other stalks, always rewarding, often producing animals, where just heading into the bush is the ultimate reward.
Graham May has a zest for life and writes in Keen As Mustard (Halcyon) of hunting, fishing and filming wildlife both in New Zealand and Australia.
"When I left school I was not well qualified ... but I did have a masters in pig hunting."
Darren Shields lived for pig hunting as a youngster and recalls wagging school (more than once), borrowing mum's new car, his first boar, and plenty of ferocious pigs to be carried home that weighed as much as the child hunter.
In Pigs Not PlayStations (Halcyon) Shields writes about a childhood where pig hunting came first and everything else a distant second, a modern-day Enid Blyton and just as readable.
Stephen Jaquiery, Illustrations Editor of the Otago Daily Times, is an experienced hunter.
