MYSTERY OF THE NILE: The Epic Story of the First Descent of the World's Deadliest River

Explorers have always clamored to be the first, and after centuries of such conquests, there are precious few left. One first that hadn't been fully achieved, however, was navigating the Nile from its source in Ethiopia to where it pours into the Mediterranean near Alexandria. In 2004, Scaturro and Gordon Brown, two men with shockingly little regard for their own safety, undertook this expedition, running the 3,000 miles of river in some terrible conditions. Ostensibly, the point of this trip was to make an IMAX film of it (which will be released in February), but readers soon learn that the journey was an end in itself. The book's beginning, as the pair start out in Ethiopia, is fascinating; they explore ancient churches and convince suspicious locals they aren't a threat. Bangs, an expert river guide, and geophysicist Scaturro explain how the team undergoes harrowing stretches of whitewater and evades flotillas of aggressive crocodiles, painfully negotiating their way north, through the Sudan and into Egypt. The material for a raw and thrilling adventure is definitely here, but alas, the narrative never sustains much momentum, constantly flashing back to other exciting episodes in Scaturro's life in a manner that eventually feels like padding. Agent, Howard Morhaim. (Feb. 3)

Forecast: Putnam will launch the book with a national author tour coinciding with the release of the IMAX film, which could bump sales slightly.