The Man-eaters of Tsavo is a semi-autobiographical book written by Anglo-Irish military officer and hunter John Henry Patterson. Published in 1907, it recounts his experiences in East Africa while supervising the construction of a railroad bridge over the Tsavo river in Kenya, in 1898. It is titled after a pair of man-eating lions that terrorized the undertaking for nine months until they were shot by Patterson. His recounting of this incident projected him to fame, and it remains the subject of debate to this day. It has also been the basis of numerous films, the best known being The Ghost and the Darkness (1996), starring Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas.