Cyrenaica
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, FLEE!
Libya, 1805: A makeshift army of Arabs, Greeks, Egyptians and U.S. Marines, “all mixed riotously together,” sets off across North Africa to rescue three hundred American sailors imprisoned by the King of Tripoli. The expedition is soon beset by a series of brutal and mysterious murders–at first apparently random, but then becoming more purposeful and troubling. Private Lemuel Sweet, a young New Englander, chronicles the hardships he and his companions endure on their march west over the seemingly endless sands of the Sahara. Looming ahead of them is the threat of combat in a foreign land. But worse is the creeping suspicion Sweet feels that one of the men leading the expedition is not what he pretends to be, and that ancient and arcane forces are at work that could mean death for him and his fellow Marines before a single shot is fired. Death…or worse.
“Cyrenaica—once part of the nation of Tripoli—becomes the setting for a historical novel detailing the brutal 1805 trek through the Sahara Desert during the U.S.’s first foreign military action. Told partly through present-tense, third-person narration and partly through [the main character’s] lengthy, intermittent diary entries, this dark story with heavy supernatural overtones vividly depicts the heat, aridity, and mystery of the unending expanse of sand and emptiness that tortures body and mind. Not for the squeamish, but [McCandless’s] skillful, often elegant prose compensates for a disturbing tale about an American mission in Africa.” —Kirkus Reviews
