Detailed accounts make an entertaining read

A schoolboy with time on his hands in the library picked up a book by Barry Crump, followed by Philip Holden, and these writings spurred John Royle into a life as a hunter.

He has obviously kept good diaries because his writing is detailed as he recounts early days and antics working for the forest service on the Heaphy Track, his apprenticeship into life as a bushman.

His main quarry was goats, with a smattering of deer and cattle thrown in, in the upper South Island but it is the ever changing hut-mates with their varying habits and foibles that make this book such an entertaining read.

- Stephen Jaquiery is ODT illustrations editor and a keen hunter.