The Last Hero / Peter Forbath

Historical adventure on a grand scale: this is a richly fictionalised account of perhaps explorer Stanley’s greatest feat: the military rescue of Emin Pasha, the mysterious and beleaguered governor of the only British province in Central Africa to resist the Mahdi and his dervish hordes after the fall of Khartoum in 1885. To avenge the death of General Gordon and restore his imperial honour, Britain selects Stanley as the obvious, indeed only, man for the job. The wily, ruthless and indomitable Stanley eschews the easiest route and chooses the most arduous: the 5,000-mile journey through the unexplored Congo, having made a secret agreement with King Leopold of the Belgians. The expedition is held together, if only barely, by Stanley’s iron will and survives disease, desertion, starvation, hostile natives and the treachery of the notorious Arab slave trader Tippoo-Tib, not to mention the dangers of the great river it must navigate.