In the big game hunt for bestsellerdom, Wilbur Smith has few rivals.

When not shooting game, he’s been firing off best sellers for over fifty years.

Finally, he has penned a memoir, ON LEOPARD ROCK, which will surely scale the best seller lists on the strength of his fan base.

Subtitled A Life of Adventures, ON LEOPARD ROCK is certainly that, from his early childhood in Africa under the tutelage of his father, Herbert, – “He was my God” is quoted more than once in the tome – to the fame of an internationally published author, Wilbur Smith has had an adventurous life.

ON LEOPARD ROCK is subdivided into seventeen chapters, most of which carry the compartments of his life – child, boy, student, seafarer and so on.

One chapter of particular interest is This Hollywood Life which tells of the pros and cons of having his books optioned and produced as films.

Screen rights to his first book, WHEN THE LION FEEDS, were snapped up early and would have starred Stanley Baker and Peter O’Toole, but the film failed to materialise.

Then Smith was asked to write the screenplay adaptation of a book he had not written, Jock of the Bushveld, and again nothing came of the project.

Finally in 1968, an adaptation of one of his novels, The Dark of the Sun, made it to the silver screen, under the title The Mercenaries, starring Australian actor, Rod Taylor.

Two films based on his books, Gold and Shout at the Devil, starred Roger Moore and there is some behind the scenes banter about the making of those films, including Moore’s contracting arsenic poisoning that turned his nipples green.

It was Moore’s co star in Shout at the Devil, Lee Marvin, with whom Wilbur became fast friends. Eight years after the production, he caught up with Lee in Australia, and the two bonded over fishing for giant marlin along the Great Barrier Reef.

ON LEOPARD ROCK is a half century of self centredness distilled into 350 pages.

ON LEOPARD ROCK by Wilbur Smith Published by Zaffre