1914. Brazil's , the River of Doubt. Plagued by hunger and suffering the lingering effects of malaria, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, his son Kermit, and the other members of the now-ravaged Roosevelt-Rondon scientific expedition are traveling deeper and deeper into the jungle. When Kermit and the Colonel are kidnapped by a mysterious Amazonian tribe, they soon discover the price of their freedom. They must find and kill a ravenous beast – a beast that has never been seen and that leaves no tracks. With his characteristically rich storytelling and a touch of old-fashioned horror, the bestselling and critically acclaimed Louis Bayard turns the well-known story of the Roosevelt-Rondon expedition on its head and anatomizes the demons that can haunt us from birth to death.