Brad Ricca

Well. What a mess this book is. The subject matter sounds fascinating...subtitled "The True Story of New York City's Greatest Female Detective", it covers the remarkable career of Grace Quackenbos Humiston, a lawyer, US District Attorney, and private detective who for a period of time carried an NYPD badge, all in the first few decades of the 20th century. Mrs. Humiston was passionate about bringing an end to the practice of "white slavery", which claimed young girls in vast numbers and was show more believed to be supported by an international criminal organization; she also devoted much of her private practice to helping immigrants deal with the US legal system. She may, or may not, have been instrumental in solving the disappearance and murder of one particular young girl, Ruth Cruger. Any competent author should have been able to deliver a heckin' great book out of such material. But it is not this book. It meanders, it's repetitive, it has no coherent structure or narrative flow, contains way too much minute yet unenlightening detail and too many verbatim transcripts of interviews and testimony that fail to reveal anything useful. A competent editor would have slashed it by half. And I should have quit half way through. There was one fairly incredible 21st century-style quote worth sharing, however: "For a long time we have had runaway immigrants pouring in on us and have tried the man's scheme of building a high restrictive fence about our country...it is time to take the bandage off the eyes of international Justice, lay down her sword, get her mind off the thief and the jail, and become a kindly, intelligent mother to the world". I get the feeling Mrs. Humiston deserved a better champion. This treatment was just too much of a slog.
Review written January 2021 show less

I haven't read the original book by Nellie Bly about her undercover investigation in a New York City asylum in 1887, but this graphic adaptation tempts me to do so. Solid script and art drew me along as the injustices and abuses were witnessed and exposed by the feisty reporter.

It's depressing that even over a century later we can still regularly find examples of our institutions neglecting or abusing the weak and marginalized -- be it the elderly in nursing homes or immigrants in ICE show more detention centers. And it's scary to think that the news media we rely on to do the kinds of investigations and exposés that Bly did is withering away before our eyes. show less

In 1909 Montague Parker, the younger brother of the English Earl of Morley, led an expedition to Jerusalem in search of the Ark of the Covenant. Parker was backed by a syndicate of upper crust Englishmen. The whole undertaking was based on the work of a Finnish academic, Dr. Valter Juvelius, who claims to have discovered a code - a cypher - within the Old Testament which revealed the Ark's location.

I am sure that there is a worthwhile book to be had from the 1909 expedition, but for me, Brad show more Ricca's True Raiders is not it. The book is categorized as a biography (of Parker I suppose), but it's written as narrative nonfiction, with invented scenes and dialogue to move the story along.

While that approach might have worked, unfortunately the main story is told from different perspectives, involving multiple characters (some of whom are only tangentially involved), and interspersed with flashbacks to an earlier English expedition. The result is a book that is very disjointed, hard to read, and for me very hard to get wrapped up in.

While I had problems with the author's approach to the story, I am also not really a fan of the way this particular expedition took place.

First, there were no archaeologists brought in. An amateur archeologist, Father Vincent, volunteered on site and was allowed to participate, but was never told the true nature of the expedition (that they were searching for the Ark).

And that's the second thing - Parker, his crew and syndicate all kept their purpose under wraps. Their estimate of the worth of the Ark meant they'd have competition if word got out. So they lied to the Ottoman government (responsible for Jerusalem at the time), the local mayor, the local people, and those they hired to do the digging they required. If they had found the Ark they would have smuggled it out of the country, in contravention of Ottoman law. And to top it all off they secretly excavated beneath a Muslim holy place, and when caught at this had to flee the country. So it wasn't a particularly ethical expedition, but rather one that reeked of entitlement and empirical hubris.

Given all that, it's hard to root for Parker and company while reading this book, even if you do want to see where their efforts are going to lead. There were a couple of points where I wanted to just put the book down, but it takes a lot for me to not finish a book, and there was just enough here to keep me going.

I was really intrigued by the premise of this book and looked forward to reading it. But I cannot really recommend it. I give True Raiders Two Stars ⭐⭐.

NOTE: I received an advanced reviewer's copy of this book through NetGalley and St. Martin's Press in exchange for a fair and honest review. This hardcover and audiobook editions are available September 21, 2020. show less

From start to finish, I remained glued to this story until the end. Brad Ricca has recreated the story of Olive MacLeod and her brave adventure into the heart of Africa with great finesse. The time is 1910. Olive Macleod, a 30 year old woman from Scotland, receives word that her fiancé, ornithologist and explorer Boyd Alexander, has gone missing in Nigeria and is presumed dead. She requests permission to accompany an African expedition with a seasoned explorer, Percy Talbot and his wife. show more Olive wishes to put her mind at rest and to find answers as to what happened to Boyd that caused his surprising death.

Olive boards a train in Liverpool to start her adventure and soon sets sail for the African continent. Once arrived to the interior region of Nigeria near the southern Sudan, Olive and the expedition members encounter both beauty in the flora and fauna, and of course many trials and tribulations along the way as most African expeditions did in the Victoria era. Experiencing lush jungles full of baboons and hippos, swarms of mosquitos, and spitting cobras that left Talbot temporarily blind, Olive is a real trooper and presents herself as one hardy and ambitious adventurer. Legends had it that lost in the jungle was a secret hidden waterfall that no man has been able to find. But a very determined Olive was hell-bent to find it and had great success! In addition, there was a mountain no man had been able to reach the summit of, yet hale and hearty Olive made it to the top and set the standard that women can also be mighty explorers!

The expedition team traveled long and hard enduring many hardships and travails such as climate challenges, sandstorms, sweltering heat, raging hippos, hungry crocodiles, black mambas, angry djinns, and tribal chiefs that tried to poison them with dates. This trip was no cakewalk!

But along with all the challenges that were set upon their paths, they also enjoyed the flipside of the journey by enjoying the local tribes and learning of the daily life, culture, and folklore of the Africa people. Olive was a great collector of African artifacts and brought many a trinket of beaded jewelry, clothing, and weapons back to London for the museum. The explorers adopted a baby giraffe that they named Josephine, and also took home two baby lion cubs that ended up at the London Zoo.

From her ability to always survive the tragedy of the day, to the ambition of learning to shoot a rifle and skin fish, climb tall mountains, spend weeks canoeing Lake Chad, and treating the tribal people with love and respect, I really found myself admiring this incredible woman. This was a time where men were highly chauvinistic and thought women too weak to endure the hardships that an African expedition would present. Olive again and again proves them wrong and shows them her true mettle. When answers are finally given to her regarding Boyd’s fate, she sadly accepts the facts but bravely soldiers on.

I found the author’s execution and writing style of this unknown tale to be spectacular. From the diary style excerpts detailing Olive’s nightly letters to Boyd, to the incredible atmospheric scenes of the Nigerian landscape and native people, and the well-researched and highly detailed account of the expedition itself, Ricca bats it out of the park with this book. I truly felt I was there in Nigeria travelling along with Olive. I felt the heat of the jungle, the spray of the waterfall, the roar of the lions. This was a topnotch historical adventure travel book and I can’t praise it enough. Standing ovation, Jeannie gives it five stars! show less