Dean King has a strong following as an authority on Patrick O'Brian. More than 250,000 copies of his O'Brian-related books are in print.- King retraced parts of the epic, 800-mile journey he writes about, so the book is rich with the sort of detail one could only get from being on the scene, in the heart of the desert.- While there have been numerous historical adventure narratives published in recent years, this is the first major work to take place in the desert--and in the greatest desert of all, at that.- Two of the survivors wrote books about their experiences, one of which sold over one million copies and was read by, among others, a young Abraham Lincoln.- Captain James Riley and his group of survivors lost up to half their body weight on their three-month trek through the desert, going for days consuming only camel urine and locusts.