The Man-Eaters of Tsavo Book

The account of a big-game hunter and builder of the Mombasa railway, Col Patterson, who was also the guy who took on the notorious man-eating lions of Tsavo. These two lions are possibly the biggest man eaters in history, killing maybe 140 people and bringing the railway construction to a halt because of their nightly attacks on the workers' camps, and by Patterson's account were near-supernaturally cunning and deadly. A fabulous story, even with Patterson's truly weird decision to pause the story of the MAN EATING LIONS for entire chapters while he discusses his railway construction (which said, that railway pretty much created a country and allowed British domination of East Africa, so.)

Obviously this is a book by a British empire builder of the turn of the century, for good and ill. The attitudes to race and culture are a lot more interesting and gnarly than the stereotypes might lead you to suspect (Patterson is all about the White Man's Burden and reeks of British entitlement but he also sets to learn Swahili, already speaks Hindustani, and undeniably puts his own life at risk against the lions attacking his men). It's full of unintentionally hilarious quotes (eg on zebras: "This was the first time I had seen these beautifully marked animals in their wild state, so I selected the largest and fired." So. That tells you everything.) Plus the story of the lions is genuinely jawdropping, particularly the bit where one of them gets into the railway carriage where three hunters are lying in wait.