Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley & Livingstone, Dugard - B+

           Between 1841 and 1863, David Livingstone, British physician, missionary and explorer,  had traveled extensively throughout Africa, filling in the vast blanks on the maps that the Europeans were trying to create. He had walked across the continent from east to west over four years. His left arm was damaged by a lion bite and his body was filled with hookworm. In 1866, at the age of 53, he returned to Africa to find the source of the Nile. Although John Speke had assured the Royal Geographic Society that Lake Victoria was the source, his colleague and rival, Richard Burton, insisted it was Lake Tanganyika. Thus, the matter remained unresolved, and Livingstone's trip was sponsored by the RGS. Livingstone's progress was slow. It took four months to  reach Lake Nyassa, 300 miles long and 60 wide, the southernmost of the three great lakes that make up the African Rift Lakes. He began to circle the lake clockwise.

         Later that year, rumors reached London that Livingstone was dead. The stories being told were not consistent, but by early 1867, Livingstone's obituary was published. However many, including the leadership of the RGS, were not convinced. The society and the government funded a search expedition. Within months, E. D. Young was leading a small troop on a steel boat up the Zambezi River to the Nyassa. He confirmed that the tales about Livingstone's death were false, and returned to London.

        By the time Livingstone headed northwest from Lake Nyassa, his entourage was reduced to a handful of loyal porters. As reports of Livingstone's disappearance circulated, the New York Herald decided to dispatch Henry Morton Stanley, a Civil War veteran and peripatetic traveler, to Africa to find the great explorer. In March, 1869, Livingstone reached Ujiji on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika. From there, he headed west with Arab slavers to find the Lualaba River. In the African interior, he stopped and stayed at a town called Bambarre, as he was now a very sick, old man who could barely travel. He suffered from every conceivable dreaded disease and parasite that Africa could impose upon a European. He had lost almost all of his teeth and could barely eat. By the end of 1869, the legendary Livingstone needed to be rescued. Both the British Foreign Office, inspired by the the RGS, and the NY Herald, desperate for a story, were on the case. 

      Stanley sailed from Zanzibar for the African coast in early 1871. He began the long journey into the interior. The trek through the jungles, swamps and plains took its usual toll on the caravan, decimating porters, pack animals and one of the two Europeans who accompanied Stanley. Simultaneously, a British expedition under Sir Samuel Baker ascended the Nile and reached Gondokoro, just four degrees south of the equator. Unbeknownst to each other, Stanley and Baker were equidistant from Livingstone, who was resting hundreds of miles from them in the interior. Livingstone finally roused himself, set out and reached the western shore of Lake Tanganyika in September of 1871. A month later, he crossed over to Ujiji and prayed to be saved. On the 27th of October, after 975 miles and eight months, Stanley reached Ujiji, shook hands with a toothless, old, white-haired Englishman and said, "Dr. Livingstone I presume."

     The two men spent weeks getting to know each other. After recovering with four meals per day provided by Stanley's ample supplies, Livingstone suggested they seek the source together. They traveled around the northern end of Lake Tanganyika  and confirmed that there was no river flowing north. They then traveled to Tabora, a third of the way to the coast. They bid farewell and Stanley began the return to civilization on his own, carrying years of Livingstone's notes, journals and letters. Stanley reached the coast on May 7th and sailed to London a few weeks afterward. He was received by the Queen and offered $10,000 for a book about his trip. Livingstone returned to the interior to pursue his belief that the source was further south than Lake Victoria. "In addition to blood loss, anemia, malaria, dysentery, and hookworm, a blood clot the size of an apple had formed in his abdomen." He died on May 1, 1873 at the age of 60. His men buried his heart in Africa, and sent his mummified remains home to England. He lay in state in the RGS Map Room and was interred at Westminster Abbey. His funeral was the largest ever in the capital. Stanley was a pallbearer and honored his promise to Livingstone. He returned to Africa to find the source.

    "Livingstone's death opened the floodgates to European exploration of Africa." Stanley circumnavigated Lakes Victoria and Tanganyika, confirming Speke's theory that Lake Victoria was the source of the Nile. He died in 1904. A hundred years later, a satellite would confirm that the Nile bubbled up in the mountains of Burundi, halfway between Lakes Tanganyika and Victoria. This is a thoroughly enjoyable read.

     

Death in the East, Mukherjee - B+

     In early 1922, Sam leaves Calcutta and travels up country to Assam, where he enters a Hindi ashram for the purpose of kicking his opium habit. He struggles through the first painful week, when he is distracted by, and asked to look into, the death of a fellow patient. This is also the first time in the series where there are extensive flashbacks to Sam's early days as a London policeman. As he is recovering in Assam, he attends an event and sees a man he knows to be a killer, whom all of London assumed had been dead for decades. Gaines/Carter recognizes Sam, but he he is dead before the night is over. Sgt. Surendranath conducts the investigation with Sam overseeing him. The official investigation of Gaines/Carter's demise concludes 'death by natural causes', but Surendranath tells Sam that he owes him a favor for looking away from the truth. Superb addition to the series.

River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile, Millard - B

          Our story starts in 1801 with the British removing the Rosetta Stone from Alexandria, transporting it to London, and fueling "a decades-long obsession with Egypt..." Europe focused on learning all it could about a society that pre-dated Greece and Rome, and one of the objects of their curiosity was the source of the Nile. Indeed, speculation about the source of the river had been going on for two thousand years. A Roman expedition had been blocked in what is now South Sudan by a massive swamp or bog that extended for hundreds of miles and was unnavigable. The Sudd was not penetrated until 1842, when the Turks proceeded further south. Many believed that the best chance of success was to seek the source from the south, not by ascending the river from the north. At the mid-point of the century, the Royal Geographic Society decided to mount an expedition. The man they chose to lead it was Richard Burton, a thirty-two year old adventurer and East India Company lieutenant, who amongst other accomplishments, had just become the first westerner to complete a Hajj to Mecca. The RGS and the East India Company directed Burton to head west from Aden on the Gulf of Suez. Burton put together a team, organized his supplies and was ready to head into the interior. They were attacked by Somalis at their base camp on the coast.  Burton and a comrade were seriously wounded; a third member died. The expedition was off.

       A few years later, the RGS decided to try again, and once more appointed Burton as the leader. He picked John Speke, who had been wounded with him at Aden, as his second in command. Unbeknownst to Burton, Speke harbored resentments and was filled with hatred toward him. This time, they waited out the rainy season in Zanzibar. They sailed to the coast, and the East African Expedition headed toward Lake Tanganyika on June 27, 1857. Progress was slow, as men deserted, and many fell ill, particularly Burton. Their objective was approximately a thousand miles inland, and after 134 days, they were about three-fourths of the way there. They stopped at Kazeh for over a month. Burton had to be carried, had become completely paralyzed, and would remain so for a year. He turned command over to Speke. Speke had recovered from a near fatal fever and was temporarily blind. Eventually, they reached Tanganyika, "the longest and second deepest freshwater lake in the world..." They settled into Ujiji, an Arab trading town, from which they would explore the lake. Their desire to search the lake was inhibited by their inability to obtain anything larger than a long canoe. Reluctantly, Burton set out to return to the coast. Local travelers had told them that there was a larger lake north of the Tanganyika, and Speke convinced Burton to let him seek it out. Speke was accompanied by Sidi Bombay, an African who had been raised as a slave in India. As he had been for the previous year in service to the expedition, Bombay proved to be a valuable, guide, interpreter and colleague. A month after leaving Kazeh, Speke reached the lake the natives called Nyanza. He was the first European to see it, and called it Lake Victoria. 

     On February 2, 1859, the expedition reached the coast. Speke returned to London two weeks before Burton, who was delayed because of poor health. Speke had already been assured that he would lead the next expedition to Lake Victoria by the time Burton arrived home. He had convinced the RGS and all of London that whatever success they had had, was because of him. Speke was instructed to proceed to Lake Victoria, find the headwaters of the Nile and proceed north into South Sudan and descend the Nile. His second in command was James Grant, and once again, the ever-reliable Sidi Bombay would also be with them. From Zanzibar, they headed to the coast and inland, once again racked by fever and desertion. They proceeded to the lake and found what they believed to be the source of the Nile. It flowed over a falls from the lake and began its 4,000 mile march to the Mediterranean. Speke, Grant and Bombay headed down the river. They had achieved the ultimate, something wondered about for thousands of years. When they reached Alexandria, Speke telegraphed the RGS that the "Nile is settled." But because Speke brought back no proof, the issue was still considered unresolved. 

    Speke returned to London in June, 1863 and was rewarded with the Founder's medal by the RGS. However, the explorer's insecurities and argumentative nature soon caused dismay in polite society. The RGS disavowed him, and the following summer, he died in a hunting accident that likely was suicide. A decade later, American Henry Stanley explored Lake Victoria and confirmed Speke's theory about the source of the Nile. As for Burton, his travels had left him very unhealthy, and he lived out his life in a number of minor consular postings. Ironically, he became financially comfortable by translating the 'Kama Sutra' and 'Arabian Nights'. He was knighted and died in Trieste years later.

The Murder Rule, McTiernan - B

            This is a good, but somewhat far-fetched, legal thriller featuring a third - year law student at the University of Maine. She bluffs herself onto the UVA Law School Innocence Project in order to sabotage the potential release of a man her mother has told her killed her father. Her mother has been lying for twentyyears, a fact Rebecca discovers as she is knee-deep in the case. This book has been highly acclaimed and falls into the classic characterization of being a good beach read.

The Verifiers, Pek - B

           This is an intriguing debut novel narrated by a young Chinese-American woman who describes the hilariously complicated details of life for immigrant Chinese families in NYC. Claudia Li goes to work for a firm that verifies, for those on matchmaking sites, what is true and what is false about whoever it is they are exchanging data with. She concludes that one of their clients has been murdered and pursues a personal investigation. The dead client was a journalist who had discovered that the websites were using bots and synths to enhance their numbers and to elicit more data from their customers. Although it bogs down at times in too much technology, it's still a blast to read.

Bone Orchard, Doiron -B-

                 This is the fifth and the weakest in the Mike Bowditch series. Mike had resigned from the Warden Service a few months, when his former mentor, Kathy Frost, is shot at her home. This comes on the heels of her killing a sadly deranged Afghanistan vet and attracting the attention of the local veterans. Mike pursues a personal investigation, succeeds, and rejoins the Maine Warden Service.