It was a once-in-a-lifetime find.

I was researching for my book Harbors and High Seas in the New York Yacht Club library, when, combing the shelves, I spotted a book entitled “Sufferings in Africa.” It was too much for me to resist. I pulled the musty volume down and read it, ignoring my work for the next day and a half. It was the memoir of Connecticut captain James Riley, published in 1817, telling the story of the wreck of the merchant brig Commerce on the west coast of Africa. His tale of suffering at sea and of enslavement, death and redemption on the Sahara was stunningly detailed and nuanced. Unable to forget the story, I crossed the street to the New York Public Library and researched both Riley and the other members of his crew. What I discovered set me off on my own journey through archives from New England to New Orleans and across the Atlantic in Gibraltar and Morocco. This all led me eventually to make my own seventeen-day trek in Land Rover and on camels across Western Sahara in the footsteps of Captain Riley and his crew of Connecticut River seamen.

            After being enslaved by Arab nomads on the Sahara, half of the brig's crew disappeared in the sands forever. The other half, including Riley, eventually made their way across 800 miles of some of the harshest terrain on earth and past the inimical tribes of the Atlas foothills to Mogadore (now Essaouira), Morocco, where they were ransomed.   What made this account stand apart was not just the hair-raising escapes from danger and Riley's detailed descriptions of life on the Sahara but his method of shepherding his men to safety.  Riley encouraged his men to cooperate with their master, Sidi Hamet. The two leaders, the one a captain of the seas, the other a captain of the sands, came to respect and like each other, a fact that allowed them to negotiate the desert together against all odds.

            When he was a boy, Abraham Lincoln read Riley's account of escape from brutal slavery. Lincoln was so moved that in his 1860 campaign biography he mentioned Riley's narrative as one of the six formative lessons of his youth.

            Later, Riley's story and the shipwreck of the Commerce were lost in history. Skeletons on the Zahara reminds us of the hard won lessons that these bold Connecticut sailors learned on the edge of the fierce Arab world.

        Published by Little, Brown in February 2004, Skeletons on the Zahara instantly became a national bestseller. It was featured on NPR's Talk of the Nation and in Time magazine, and was excerpted in National Geographic Adventure Magazine.

            Optioned by Intermedia with Barry Levinson and Paula Weinstein's Baltimore/Spring Creek Productions (BSC), Skeletons on the Zahara is currently being developed as a feature film.  A paperback edition of Skeletons on the Zahara was realsed by Back Bay on April 12, 2005. Other editions of the book are available through Palm eBook, Books on Tape, and Thorndike Press (large print).