Tribal Gathering is a collection of eight stories set in an imaginary West African state shortly after gaining its independence from the British in 1962. Struggling to come to terms with the tribalism, nepotism, corruption and greed that flourishes at all levels of society is part of every-day life and relatively simple compared to the problems of surviving three military coups and a civil war. It is against this backdrop and that of a rapidly failing infrastructure that the stories evolve. From the dry heat of the Northern Desert to the suffocating humidity of the Delta, the stories tell of the daily ordeal as the characters try to live out their lives against all the odds. Betrayal, revenge, ignorance, pride and stupidity intermingled with witchcraft, African Deities and Freemasonry, these stories have it all and Ken Ryeland deals with them in his usual consummate way to provide interesting and compelling reading.