A Kirkus Reviews best nonfiction book of 2016.
A remarkable true story of adventure, betrayal, and survival set in one
of the world's most inhospitable places.
In 1906, from atop a snow-swept hill in the ice fields northwest of
Greenland, hundreds of miles from another human being, Commander Robert
E. Peary spotted a line of mysterious peaks looming in the distance. He
called this unexplored realm "Crocker Land." Scientists and explorers
agreed that the world-famous explorer had discovered a new continent
rising from the frozen Arctic Ocean.
Several years later, two of Peary's disciples, George Borup and Donald
MacMillan, assembled a team of amateur adventurers to investigate
Crocker Land. Before them lay a chance at the kind of lasting fame
enjoyed by Magellan, Columbus, and Captain Cook. While filling in the
last blank space on the globe, they might find new species of plants or
animals, or even men; in the era of Jules Verne and HG Wells, anything
seemed possible. Renowned scientific institutions, and even former
president Theodore Roosevelt, rushed to endorse the expedition.
What followed was a sequence of events that none of the explorers could
have imagined. Trapped in a true-life adventure story, the men endured
howling blizzards, unearthly cold, food shortages, isolation, a fatal
boating accident, a drunken sea captain, disease, dissension, and a
horrific crime. But the team pushed on through every obstacle, driven
forward by the mystery of Crocker Land and faint hopes that they someday
would make it home.
Populated with a cast of memorable characters, and based on years of
research in previously untapped sources, A Wretched and Precarious
Situation is a harrowing Arctic narrative unlike any other.
