When the First World War breaks out, the British navy is committed to engaging the enemy wherever there is water to float a ship—even if the body of water in question is a remote African lake and the enemy an intimidating fleet of German steamers. The leader of this improbable mission is Geoffrey Spicer-Simson whose navy career thus far had been distinguished by two sinkings. His seemingly impossible charge: to trek overland through the African bush hauling Mimi and Toutou—two forty-foot mahogany gunboats–with a band of cantankerous, insubordinate Scotsmen, Irishmen and Englishmen to defeat the Germans on Lake Tanganyika. With its powerfully evoked landscape, cast of hilariously colorful characters and remarkable story of hubris, ingenuity and perseverance, this incredibly bizarre story–inspiration for the classic film The African Queen–is history at its most entertaining and absorbing.

At the start of World War One, German warships controlled Lake Tanganyika in Central Africa. The British had no naval craft at all upon 'Tanganjikasee', as the Germans called it. This mattered: it was the longest lake in the world and of great strategic advantage. In June 1915, a force of 28 men was despatched from Britain on a vast journey. Their orders were to take control of the lake. To reach it, they had to haul two motorboats with the unlikely names of Mimi and Toutou through the wilds of the Congo. The 28 were a strange bunch -- one was addicted to Worcester sauce, another was a former racing driver -- but the strangest of all of them was their skirt-wearing, tattoo-covered commander, Geoffrey Spicer-Simson. Whatever it took, even if it meant becoming the god of a local tribe, he was determined to cover himself in glory. But the Germans had a surprise in store for Spicer-Simson, in the shape of their secret 'supership' the Graf von Gotzen . . . Unearthing new German and African records, the prize-winning author of The Last King of Scotland retells this most unlikely of true-life tales with his customary narrative energy and style. Fitzcarraldo meets Heart of Darkness, this is rich, vivid and flashmanesque in its appeal - military history at its most absorbing and entertaining

What would it be like to become Idi Amin's personal physician? Giles Foden's bestselling thriller is the story of a young Scottish doctor drawn into the heart of the Ugandan dictator's surreal and brutal regime. Privy to Amin's thoughts and ambitions, he is both fascinated and appalled. As Uganda plunges into civil chaos he realises action is imperative - but which way should he jump?

Det ene af C. Millers værker om 1. Verdenskrig i Afrika - "Lunatic Express" haves ikke.

Henry Morton Stanley undertook the greatest African expedition of the 19th century to rescue Emin Pasha, last lieutenant of the martyred General Gordon and governor of the southern Sudan. Instead of ten months, the trip took three years and cost the lives of thousands of people, as Stanley's column hacked its way across the last great, unexplored territory in Africa. Stanley's secret agenda was territorial expansion on the model of Leopold's Congo or the British East India Company.

When the First World War breaks out, the British navy is committed to engaging the enemy wherever there is water to float a ship—even if the body of water in question is a remote African lake and the enemy an intimidating fleet of German steamers. The leader of this improbable mission is Geoffrey Spicer-Simson whose navy career thus far had been distinguished by two sinkings. His seemingly impossible charge: to trek overland through the African bush hauling Mimi and Toutou—two forty-foot mahogany gunboats–with a band of cantankerous, insubordinate Scotsmen, Irishmen and Englishmen to defeat the Germans on Lake Tanganyika. With its powerfully evoked landscape, cast of hilariously colorful characters and remarkable story of hubris, ingenuity and perseverance, this incredibly bizarre story–inspiration for the classic film The African Queen–is history at its most entertaining and absorbing.

'Every new novel by Giles Foden is something to celebrate' Paul Theroux 'An amazing and profound work, rich in memorable detail' Jay Parini 'Foden has cleverly reworked the grand African adventure novel' Aminatta Forna, Guardian 'A perceptive, compassionate history of an enormously complex conflict' Irish Times 'Sharp and fast-paced. Foden does a fine job of locating the reader in the maelstrom of this brutal period in Congo's past, taking us deep into the heart of a complex conflict' Observer 1996: in a Ugandan dive bar, the 'freight dogs' gather. An anarchic group of mercenary pilots from Texas, Russia, Kenya and Belgium who transport weapons between warring African nations, without allegiance. And tonight they have a new recruit - Manu, a nineteen-year-old cowherd fleeing Congo's bloody war. Taken in by this band of unlikely brothers, Manu hopes to reinvent himself. But no matter how fast he flies, trouble always seems to follow closely behind...