The Amazon basin is STILL not an easy place to survive if you don't know what you are doing (have a read of Redmond O'Hanlon's In Trouble Again: A Journey Between Orinoco and the Amazon)but in the 18th century is was HORRIFYING.

In 1735 a team of French scientists set out on a daring expedition into the South American wilderness to resolve one of the great scientific challenges of the time: the precise size and shape of the Earth. A French father and son team had spent their lives proving that the Earth was pinched at the equator but pointy towards the poles.  One rainy afternoon Isaac Newton had used the back of an envelope to prove that that the Earth was flatten towards the poles.

Scaling the Andes and journeying along the Amazon, the mapmakers faced all manner of danger, while madness, disease and violent death each took their toll. However one, Jean Godin, fell in love with a local girl called Isabel Grameson. When the time came for the expedition to return to France, Godin travelled ahead to ensure the way was safe for his new family. But on reaching French Guiana, disaster struck: Spain and Portugal closed their borders and he was stranded, unable to return to Isabel. What followed lies at the core of this extraordinary tale - a heartbreaking 20-year separation that ended when Isabel, believing she might never see her husband again, decided to make her own way across the continent: a journey that began in hope but became hell on earth...Drawing on his own experience retracing Isabel's epic trek as well as contemporary records, Robert Whitaker recounts a captivating true story of love and survival set against the backdrop of what many still regard as 'the greatest expedition the world has ever known'.

This is the true story of the exploitation of the Congo by King Leopold of Belgium.   He looked around him in the late 1800's and decided that he wanted a colony like the other European powers.  After considering several parts of the World he settled on the part of western central Africa that had recently been 'opened up' by Stanley.  Basically he claimed all the land within the curve of the Congo River, and then began to get out as much wealth as he could.  This began with ivory and moved on to wild, and then farmed, rubber.  

He convinced the World that he was doing great things for the region while secretly perpetrating some of the most horrendous acts of brutality Africa has seen.  Estimates suggest that he was responsible for the depopulation of the the Congo basin from 20 to 10 million people over 40 years.

The exploits of the agents responsible for the extraction of the natural resources were the inspiration for Joseph Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness '

It was only thanks to campaigners like E.D. Morel over many years that public opinion slowly turned against Leopold.  The crafty old devil then SOLD the Congo to the Belgian government.

This book by Adam Hochschild uses previously documented facts to bring to life the characters of one part of the 'scramble for Africa'.  Well worth a read.

The book is about an Indian boy growing up in pre and post colonial Kenya.  The 'in-between' bit refers to the percieved state of Indians in Africa as neither colonials nor natives.

Vikram Lall, we gather, is one of the most wanted men in Africa for curruption and money grabbing. This is hinted at as the book goes along, flicking between pre-colonial Kenya and exile in modern-day Canada.  The beginning centres around the rise of the Mau Mau in and around Nakuru.  The attention then moves to Nairobi as independence comes in.  Various ideas are explored such as Vikram's sister's relationship with a black Kenyan and the postision of Asians in Kenya.  By the time I was two-thirds f the way throgh the book I was thoroughly bored as the book seemed to be in a permanent state of 'just getting going'.

I did not understand way there was a brief exploration of a new storyline, and then nothing else.  It seemed to me that the author tried to pull in a few ideas from elsewhere to pad the book out.  The whole corruption thing was never fully explored either, which proved frustrating.  

In the end I read 'King Leopold's Ghost' before picking Vickram Lall up again.  I dragged my way to a disappointing end.

Verdict - don't bother