Tarzan and Jane’s life is shattered when Nikolas Rokoff and Alexis Paulvitch kidnap Jane and their infant son Jack. Stranded on a jungle island, Tarzan forms an improvised alliance with Akut and the great apes, Sheeta the panther and the warrior Mugambi, then pursues the kidnappers into the African interior.
The pursuit moves through an early-twentieth-century world of steamships, river travel, trading posts and colonial mobility, giving the rescue story a recognisable historical frame. Against that setting, Burroughs turns Tarzan's command of animals and alliances in the jungle into the driving force of a fast-moving revenge adventure.
The pursuit also reverses the usual hierarchy between civilisation and the jungle. Rokoff relies on ships, hired men and kidnapping, while Tarzan survives by creating loyalties among animals and people whom his enemies regard as tools. Burroughs uses that contrast to make social trust, rather than inherited status, the decisive source of power in an adventure that repeatedly strips its characters of conventional protection.
Louis L’Amour
97 books
Christopher Nicole
49 books
Colin Falconer
22 books