A camera. A guide. A forest where silence is fatal

Photojournalist David Chen travels to Sumatra to capture a rare story: wild orangutans on the edge of extinction. What he finds instead is a network of poachers, smugglers, and predators hidden beneath the forest canopy.

His guide, Rudi, knows the stakes. In this jungle, justice is slow - and not everyone gets out.

As they stumble upon a jungle clearing where orangutans huddle in filthy cages, eyes haunted by silent suffering, David is forced to decide: walk away with his photos, or stay and risk everything for a truth no one asked him to find.

Blood and Leaves is a tense, immersive literary thriller rooted in the brutal realities of wildlife trafficking and conservation. Quietly devastating and morally urgent, it's a story of complicity, courage, and what it means to bear witness - even when no one is listening.

He came to photograph orangutans.

He found something no one wanted seen.

For readers of John Vaillant, Delia Owens, and Barry Lopez.