Safari Murder Party

by Rachel Moore

May 19, 2026 · Berkley

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B-

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

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I picked this book up for the following reasons:

1. The colours on the cover – hello neon!
2. The title – what could a ‘safari murder party’ be?
3. The use of ‘safari’ in the title. I am a Zimbabwean/South African and while I have been on plenty of game drives and visits to nature reserves, I’ve never considered any of that a ‘safari’ even though they’re marketed as safaris outside of my region.

Fletcher is an executive assistant to the CEO of a media company. The company owns a travel magazine for which Fletcher longs to be a photojournalist. She took the assistant job to try and get closer to that dream role. Each year, there is a company retreat to the CEO’s private island near Madagascar where a massive collection (and I use that term advisedly) of wild animals are kept (hello safari!).

At that retreat, promotions are handed out freely and Fletcher wants one. The problem is that it is only a select handful that are invited and, yet again, she’s not on the invite list. She manages to convince her boss, last minute, to let her join.

Also at the retreat is her sworn enemy, Waylon, the CEO’s son. After an incident at a charity gala hosted by the company, the two detest each other.

On their first night in Madagascar, the CEO dies and leaves a will saying that whoever survives the next five days will inherit the company. The rescue team will be back then to take the survivor or survivors back to New York. Chaos ensues.

The fighting between our two intended lovers only starts to ebb after the 50% mark, when the inciting incident in their animosity is revealed and discussed. It is alluded to before then, but not more than that. If you need more ‘lovers’ and less ‘enemies’ in your enemies-to-lovers, this might frustrate you. Things only really soften between them at around 60% in and even then, there’s hesitation.

Perhaps because of their slow reconciliation, and perhaps because there is just so much action in the book, there wasn’t as much emotional development in the romance as I would have liked. This book is more ‘plot’ than ‘character’ with one exception: Fletcher. She has to grow a lot and learn to say out loud to herself and to those around her exactly she wants.

It is an action-packed, suspenseful story. I don’t always do a good job of following action choreography when I’m reading. I just let it wash over me and get the general gist. (Am I alone in that?)

The descriptive elements of the writing are really interesting to read because the figurative language used is often quite original and always vivid. For example:

The truck chugged into the jungle canopy, aiming down a narrow trail through the thicket. Instantly the sun faded into a soupy green, determined to shine through the leafy mosaic. The air temperature plummeted enough to raise a chill on Fletcher’s arms as they carved through the undergrowth.

There is also some wonderful dark humour which I really enjoyed, such as when, Fletcher and Waylon are running through the bush and they hear a mysterious animal cry:

“It sounds like a lion had a baby with a super venomous snake.”

Waylon stayed close on her heels, a hand on the small of her back propelling her forward. “That’s biologically impossible.”

Fletcher sighed, “Okay, Steve Irwin. What do you think it is?” The grass growled again, and he pressed closer to her. “Maybe a lion or a snake, but not both.”

She had her mouth open to argue that after everything they’d witnessed this week, a lion-snake hybrid hardly seemed outrageous. There was a whole rebuttal on the top of her tongue about how his dad could have very well hired private zoological geneticists to create the first mammal-reptilian crossover species. A useless vanity project for the sake of playing god. The Tesla Cybertruck of predators. A slion.

The commentary on corporate America is not subtle (see: the title). In fact, the smattering of corporate lingo used at this death match prompted me to reflect on the kinds of people that I work with in my normie corporate job. I hear a lot of that terminology. It made an unfamiliar situation (a corporate death match) feel relatable and I hadn’t anticipated feeling that connection. At the pinnacle of my organisation, is the competition as cutthroat as this? (Perhaps not literally)

Once I started that reflection, it was a train I could not stop. I started to wonder if corporate South Africa is even somewhere I want to work and invest my energy. It felt a bit like when I read Lord of the Flies for the first time and reflected on who we (specifically for that book, men) are as people at our most basic. It had that kind of impact on me.

Right, the bleak moment. If one person keeping an integral secret from the other person drives you around the bend, then this one will frustrate you. And it is a BIG secret that this person has AMPLE opportunity to confess to the other person. So big, in fact, that between the limited development on the romance front and this secret, their HEA wasn’t as impactful on me as I would have liked.

If the romance wasn’t quite what I wanted it to be, why still a B-? I DEVOURED this book. As a thriller, it really worked. There were twists and turns, suspense and action: it was absolutely the thriller element that propelled me through Safari Murder Party. I did not put it down except when the suspense was really intense and I realised I’d been holding my breath while reading. The adventure elements are compelling, the premise is interesting, the writing is darkly funny and engaging.

But as a romance? Hmmm, not so much. I would say that the romance was more of a subplot than a main plot. Yes, our protagonists spend a huge amount of time together, but most of that time is spent trying not to die, not necessarily building intimacy and connection. As it is tagged as mystery/thriller/romance and the romance doesn’t deliver for me, I’m landing on a B- because even with the disappointing romance, the thriller elements are so utterly readable.