<p>"Of course, you're never expecting the lion, are you? Like something coming up in the rear-view mirror. Much closer than it appears."<br><br>When a lion at a breeding park mauls an old school friend of his, Con steps in as the keeper of Sekhmet, the last remaining black-maned lioness in the world. <br>In a Cape Town where fences keep people and wildlife apart, park officials and investors fret about their flagship big-cat project. And while Con grows steadily more bonded to his enigmatic charge, a cult of animal lovers with obscure alchemical aims seeks to claim the lioness as their own. <br>When she escapes, Sekhmet engulfs the city's imagination, stirring up rumours of terror and magic. In Con's quest to track her down, he must enter the wilderness of a cordoned-off Table Mountain – and his own dark history. <br>Henrietta Rose-Innes's novel Green Lion gleams with stylistic precision as myth and reality fuse in a story that sparks off the page.</p>