In 1899 Jeremy, a young engineer, leaves a small town in Maine to oversee the construction of a railroad across East Afria. Plagued by fear, he becomes the reluctant hunter of two lions who are killing his men in nightly attacks on their camp. In 2000 Max, an American ethnobotanist, is stationed in Rwanda where she shadows a family of gorillas, but their solidarity is threatened by a violent rebel group from Congo that draws ever nearer. Told in alternating perspectives, the fates of these two characters entwine to culminate in a shocking resonant conclusion.