THE BOOK OF THE HEATHEN

A Conradian expedition into the heart of darkness that was 19th-century Africa, by British novelist Edric (The Broken Lands, 2002, etc.).

By 1897 the jig was up in the Congo. Decades of official corruption, mismanagement, and brutality had aroused the indignation of the international community to such an extent that Belgium could no longer ignore calls for the reform of its colonial administration if it was to retain control of the region at all. Consequently, it set about the work of cleaning up its government with all the cynicism and duplicity that had first established it—and poor Nicholas Frere becomes one of the first victims. A British naturalist and anthropologist, Nicholas stands accused of the murder of a Congolese girl. He admits to the crime but maintains that it was committed without malice. An accident? Temporary insanity? Justifiable homicide? Nicholas has not yet made his case, because he has yet to be tried. The region where the killing took place is about to become an independent republic, and the Belgian authorities want Nicholas to appear in a native court (thereby absolving themselves of any complicity in the crime). The British company Nicholas worked for, however, doesn’t want him handed over to an alien authority without a proper investigation beforehand, so he’s moved down-river to British territory pending an inquiry into the case. Meanwhile, Nicholas’s friend and fellow employee James Frasier visits him in his makeshift prison and tries to learn what exactly happened in the bush. The elements of the story—a demented Jesuit missionary, a journal with several pages excised, an upright Quaker investigator, a malevolent and opportunistic Arab warlord, and widespread rumors of cannibalism—fit together perfectly to form an engrossing and ultimately horrifying journey into the depths of human depravity. (And the real villains, by the way, aren’t your usual suspects.)

Enthralling and intelligent: a haunting expedition into the blackest recesses of the human soul.