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Reviewed by Lee Ashford for Readers' Favorite
“The Lost Souls: A Jungle Adventure” by Robert Apold tells the tale of a Boy Scout troop camp out in the jungles of Panama, with a bit of ghost story thrown in for good measure. The story begins with a brief history of how the gold rush affected the Panama Isthmus region. In particular, it tells of three miners who struck it rich and decided to return to the east and rejoin their families. Fearing robbers, they had all their gold smelted into heavy ingots, making it impractical, if not impossible, for anyone to steal from them. They set out on the Las Cruces Trail to the eastern shore of Panama, and were never seen or heard from again. In this story the older scouts in the troop have suggested to their leader that it might be a fun outing to retrace the old, abandoned Las Cruces Trail for a multi-day camp out. But there was that pesky old camp story about “Wild Willie”, a former Scoutmaster whose son was accidentally killed in a camping accident along that trail many years earlier, causing Willie to go completely insane. Would the scouts have a fun, instructive trip along the trail? Or would they be plagued by the ghost of old “Wild Willie”? What about the three missing miners? Would the scouts stumble upon their remains, with all their gold intact?
This story is truly a jungle adventure. Facing obstacles from nature, as well as the paranormal, the scouts have a real challenge ahead of them. Hiring a local guide to help them find the actual trail, they encounter a significant rainstorm, blisters, snakes, and, ghosts? The scouts encounter far more excitement than they signed up for on this hike, and it becomes an adventure none of them will soon forget. Apold knows the territory of which he writes, having lived much of his adult life in Panama. That has given him a definite edge when it comes to character development. His scout leaders are not hard to envision as real people. This tale is one you won’t want to put down until you reach the end. And when you do reach the end, it will have been well worth the wait. I highly recommend this tale.
