The Unknown Writer: The Lost City of Z

Okay, I'm Obsessed!
Book Review: Audible.com version of David Grann's The Lost City of Z

Very well read, excellently researched, and author David Grann mixes himself so well into the mystery of the missing colonel, I seriously began to worry he would vanish as well into the Amazon jungles (and perhaps translate this volume via spiritualism). Haunting, truly, the real-life characters and quests live and breathe again, and I was sad that this book had to end. I would not have minded another 8 hours or so. Compelling stuff, we really, really do want to know what happened to the intrepid colonel and his son, and we empathize with the surviving family that fretted and worried to the proverbial end. Narrator Mark Deakins enhances the mystery with his steady, fine reading, making this feel more like a novel than journalism. Sadly, we do not have the answer yet (or do we?) and like El Dorado itself, Colonel Percy Fawcett, the perfect archetype of stiff-upper-lip British courage, is now legendary (and I half expect him and his son to still turn up, popping back through the underground portal, young and vital, waving the keys to El Dorado).

Art et Amour Toujours
Douglas Christian Larsen