Renegade - Arthur O. Friel

A disgraced former army officer living as a bandit chief among indigenous warriors on the upper Orinoco discovers that a party of American explorers has been massacred by hostile tribesmen-and that one survivor, a young woman, has been taken captive. Against every instinct for self-preservation, he launches a desperate pursuit into the Venezuelan wilderness to save her.

What follows is a harrowing odyssey down one of the world's most dangerous rivers, through waterless savannas and treacherous rapids, past revolutionary armies and murderous outlaws. Wounded, hunted, and stripped of everything but raw courage, the renegade must confront not only the perils of the jungle but the ghosts of his own bitter past-and decide whether the flag he once served still has a claim on his soul.