Fatal North - Softcover

Henderson, Bruce

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0989467546 ISBN 13: 9780989467544

Publisher: BruceHendersonBooks, 2014

Synopsis

It began as President Ulysses S. Grant's bid for international glory after the Civil War—America's first attempt to reach the North Pole. It ended with Captain Charles Hall's death under suspicious circumstances, dissension among sailors, scientists, and explorers, the ship's abandonment and eventual sinking. Then came a brutal struggle for survival by thirty-three men, women and children, stranded on the polar ice—and two dramatic rescues by whaling ships. When news of the disastrous expedition and accusations of murder reached Washington D.C., it led to a nationwide scandal, an official investigation, and a government cover-up. The mystery of the captain's death remained unsolved for nearly 100 years. But when Charles Hall's frozen grave in northern Greenland was opened, and hair and fingernail samples were retrieved, forensic scientists were finally able to reach a shocking conclusion. Now, telling the complete story for the first time, #1 New York Times bestselling author Bruce Henderson—whose works have been praised as "compelling" (Los Angeles Times Book Review) and "compulsively readable" (San Francisco Examiner)—has researched original transcripts of the U.S. Navy inquests, personal papers of Captain Hall, autopsy and forensic reports relating to the century-old crime, the ship's original log, personal journals kept by crewmen, and hero-survivor George Tyson's diary and family papers to bring to life one of the most mysterious tragedies of American arctic exploration.

About this title

About the Author

Bruce Henderson is the author or coauthor of more than twenty nonfiction books, including #1 New York Times bestseller AND THE SEA WILL TELL, a true story of murder on a South Seas island, and TRUE NORTH:MURDER AND SURVIVAL ON THE FIRST NORTH POLE EXPEDITION, winner of a national book award from the American Society of Journalists and Authors. He lives in Menlo Park, California. Find Bruce on the web at: www.brucehendersonbooks.com.

From Publishers Weekly

The Polaris expedition, the failed first U.S. expedition to the North Pole, is one of the strangest in the history of Arctic misadventure. It was marked by the mysterious death of its leader, Capt. Charles Francis Hall, and by bickering between different factions of the crew, both before and after their leader's death. After marooning 18 of its members, including officer George Tyson, on an ice floe (where they drifted for six months until rescued by another ship), the expedition ended when the vessel was abandoned by the remainder of the crew. In clean, fast-paced prose, Henderson (coauthor of And the Sea Will Tell) aptly conveys daily life on the ship and reconstructs its mood and politics vividly. He succeeds, too, at re-creating characters from among the crew, interspersing the thoughts of various men with dialogue, thereby immersing the reader in the story. Perhaps Henderson could have extracted more drama from the captain's death: in the final chapter, he explores in detail the possibility of foul play and the dying captain's suspicions that he was being poisoned, well after the description of the death itself. But he handles the story of the group that gets separated from the ship smoothly, having wisely focused on George Tyson, the leader of the stranded men, throughout the book. With narrative and descriptive skill, he chronicles the group's attempt to survive the Arctic winter and one another's treachery. In the end, Henderson casts significant doubt on the official inquiry into Hall's death, citing the inquiry's transcripts and drawing on the results of an autopsy performed on Hall's exhumed body in 1968 that reveal high levels of arsenic. Fans of adventure writing will appreciate this fine book. (Feb.)Forecast: Once again, two titles on the same subject will be released within shelving dates of one another; in this case, the rival, due out a week earlier, is Trial by Ice, by Richard Parry. Both are worthy books, though the Henderson is the worthier, but which the public flocks to remains to be seen.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: BruceHendersonBooks
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0989467546
• ISBN 13: 9780989467544
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 282