James Rollins ‘Amazonia’

On the other hand if you prefer fact rather than fiction, I'm guessing Nigel Khan Bookseller might still have a few copies of The Lost City of Z – that might, or might not, be the inspiration for Amazonia. However, the author claims to have been inspired by Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice that isn't, so far as I know, on sale in Nigel Khan Bookseller, or any other bookshop in TT.

You be the judge. The Lost City charts the career, the disappearance and the hunt for Colonel Percy Fawcett who disappeared in the Amazon jungle in the 1930s – complete with the hardships and horrors of exploring the furthest reaches of the Amazon rain forest, and is the most exciting, horrifying non-fiction book I've ever read.

Amazonia is a purely fictitious story of Nathan Rand whose father Carl Rand, disappeared in the Amazon four years before this tale begins – which it does with one of his party, CIA agent Gerald Clark, staggering out of the jungle collapsing and dying. The shaman of the village pleads with Fr Garcia, who first found Clark, to kill him and burn the body. Father Garcia refuses; he has found Clark's dog tag inscribed 'United States Special Forces', the body is transported to CIA HQ, Langley, Virginia where, to the astonishment of the authorities, their records showed Clark had had one arm amputated after it was shattered by a sniper's bullet in Iraq – but Clark's body now has two arms.

If ever there was a case for sending another expedition (complete with CIA and Rangers) to look for Carl Rand, it was the inexplicable re-growth of Agent Clark's arm. So, together with beautiful medical doctor Kelly O'Brien, her brother and leader of the expedition, Frank, Amerindian Professor-cum-shaman expert on jungle medicines Kouwe, Amerindian Manny Acevedo, official of FUNAI (Brazilian Indian Foundation), looking out for the interests of the Indians and Dr Richard Zane (a very nasty piece of work of a company executive of Tellux Pharmaceuticals, that bought out Carl and Nathan's company lock, stock and barrel after Nathan exhausted all his available funds in attempts to find and rescue his father, Carl) they set out into the wild to discover the secrets of the regeneration of Agent Clark's arm.

Trailing but unbeknownst to them (at first) come the villains of the piece, Dr Louis Favre, a biologist specialising in the Amazon rain forest ecosystem whose sadistic methods of extracting information on rain forest plants from indigenous tribes made him and the Rands, father and son, bitter enemies. So, when St Savin Biochimique Et Cie, asked Favre to organise an expedition to discover the secrets for the re-growth of Agent Clark's arm with no expense spared, he got together a mercenary jungle force of drug smugglers, others who hunted and exported endangered forest creatures and set off to track the Rand expedition and seize whatever secrets they uncovered, discoveries they made.

Horror piles on horror as the Rand expedition lose Rangers to wild beasts (giant caiman) and other indescribable reptiles, to insects – not to mention the machinations of Favre and his appalling, sadistic, beautiful mistress and female shaman Tshui.

While Rand and company, are facing perils unimaginable on a daily basis, losing one after another of their party and Farve and company are tracking them through the jungle, back in the good old US of A those who live in the area through which Agent Clark's body passed from the jungles of Amazonia, through Miami to CIA HQ are stricken with galloping forms of cancer.

Meanwhile, despite perils enough to discourage anyone from walking in the bush, the author piles on the agony, taking a mixture of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World and Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, and throwing in a gallon or two of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, our heroes' hairbreadth escapes from the baddies and even more gory deaths plus a massacre or two – all ends happily for Carl, Nathan and Kelly – and that's as much as I can divulge, having had more than my fill of horror, terror and dread just over half way through this book, and peeked at the end to make sure all does end happily.

But if horror, suspense, a little natural history, botany and biological science together with a ton and a half of fantasy plus a soup?on of romance is your cup of cocoa tea, you'll find it in “Amazonia” by James Rollins now on sale at Nigel Khan, bookseller.