Roosevelt's Beast, by Louis Bayard, 2014*****

I started reading this book last night after watching "The Hunger Games" (2012) on TV. Its 299 pages took about 3 wee hours to read. Another one that I couldn't put down.

Roosevelt's Beast is a novel imagining what might have happened to Theodore Roosevelt and his son Kermit on an actual expedition into the Brazilian forest in 1914.

"Roosevelt's Beast is a story of the impossible things that become possible when civilization is miles away, when the mind plays tricks on itself, and when old family secrets refuse to stay buried. With his characteristically rich storytelling and a touch of old-fashioned horror, the bestselling and critically acclaimed Louis Bayard turns the story of the well-known Roosevelt-Rondon expedition on its head and dares to ask: Are the beasts among us more frightening than the beasts within?" - Goodreads

Kermit Roosevelt, a sketch by John Singer Sargent from his book

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I read a book by Louis Bayard several years ago, Mr. Timothy, which was pretty good but not as interesting as this later book. It was a novel of Dickens's Tiny Tim grown up.