Looking for a book to give someone this holiday season? Consider David Raterman’s thriller, especially if you like international political thrillers. Raterman is South Florida Adventures’ editor. His book is on sale at Amazon for only $7.91 in paperback ($2.99 for ebook).

“David Raterman has published what may be the first thriller set in Afghanistan on 9-11 with ‘The River Panj.’ Raterman’s debut uses the world events of Sept. 11, 2001, to show a personal tale of Derek Braun, a former Notre Dame football star who has found a calling doing relief work in Afghanistan. As terrorists shock the world, Derek is on his own when his fiancée and a colleague are kidnapped.” – South Florida Sun Sentinel

“… the real deal. Just read the first few pages of THE RIVER PANJ and you’ll discover an exciting new writer.” – David Hagberg, best-selling thriller novelist

“The October issue of THE BIG THRILL is here with the latest books from some of your favorite authors, including Wendy Corsi, Staub, Lee, Child, John Sandford, Vincent Zandri, David Raterman …” – Janice Bashman, editor of the International Thriller Writers’ magazine

“An exciting page-turner.” – Broward Cultural Quarterly

“Derek Braun … confronts Islamic terrorists, corrupt Russian soldiers and Afghan warlords as the trail leads him to the River Panj along the Afghan border with the former Soviet-controlled Tajikistan.” – IndieReader (Received 4 out of 5 Stars)

“Great change of venue with a charismatic lead character. (Ryan Goslin, are you reading this?) So real it was like reading The New York Times.” – Ron Castell, former head of programming at Blockbuster

“The profession of relief worker is difficult and demands an enormous commitment, but gets hardly noticed except at the moment of great crises. I like this book for the way it is written but also because it sheds light on this incredibly important job.” – Peter Goossens, deputy country director of the UN World Food Programme in Afghanistan from 1999 to Sept. 13, 2001

“The humanitarian effort that goes with major combat operations isn’t always clean and precise. Terrorists look for every opportunity to exploit those trying to help. David Raterman’s novel has vividly captured the true essence of that.” – US Army Lt. Col. Blain Reeves, who served in combat with the 101st Airborne

Crime novelist Lehane is the author of Mystic River, which was made into an Academy Award-winning film, and Gone, Baby, Gone, which was adapted into a film that was nominated for an Academy Award. His novel Shutter Island was adapted into a film by Martin Scorsese.

SleuthFest attracts hundreds of mystery and thriller writers and fans each year. This year’s event takes place from March 3 to March 6 in Deerfield Beach. Tickets are still available.

Other speakers include best-selling and award-winning novelists Heather Graham, PJ Parrish, Les Standiford and James O. Born as well as Sun Sentinel mystery/thriller critic Oline Cogdill and agents and editors working the mystery/thriller genre.

Explorers Club member and Miami ophthalmologist Stan Spielman treats the Amazon's Cat People. Photo / Margaretha Spielman

On Jan. 23 the Southern Florida chapter of The Explorers Club will hold its next monthly meeting in Fort Lauderdale.

Dr. Kenneth Broad will speak about his cave diving expeditions to the blue holes of the Bahamas, which were featured in National Geographic’s August cover. In particular, he will describe his findings for the fields of microbiology, paleontology and climate science. Additionally, he will discuss lessons from cave exploration in terms of risk perception.

Broad is an environmental anthropologist who studies the relationship between humans and their environment. He is an associate professor at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and is director of the university’s Abess Center for Ecosystem Science. He also co-directs the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1999.

The meeting will be held at Tropical Acres Restaurant with the cash bar opening at 5:30 p.m. Dinner will be served at 6:30 with the lecture to follow. Charge for this event is $35 per person. To make a reservation or for more details, e-mail Beth Jones.

The Explorers Club, founded in 1904, is an international multidisciplinary professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore. Since its inception the club, which is headquartered in New York, has served as a meeting point and unifying force for explorers and scientists worldwide. The club’s members have been responsible for an illustrious series of famous firsts, such as first to the North Pole, first to the South Pole, first to the summit of Mount Everest, first to the deepest point in the ocean, first to the moon.

Remember when you could go to Loggerhead Cafe at John U Lloyd State Park in Hollywood and hold an event right on the beach? Well, you can again.

Blue Moon Outdoor Center & Events, which operates the concession at Oleta River State Park in North Miami, recently became the concessionaire at Lloyd and is restarting events on the beach.

According to owner Colleen Guido, people can bring large or small groups for “back to nature” events, such as barbecues, bonfires and weddings, on Lloyd’s miles of white sand beaches. Guido’s company has reopened Loggerhead Cafe, which offers full-service catering and an event team to accommodate requests. She said her team can handle groups up to 5,000 people.

Guido has been operated the concession at Oleta and the nearby Blue Marlin Fish House since 2004.

In addition to food services at both parks, Blue Moon offers tours and rentals for kayaking, canoeing, stand-up paddleboarding, geocaching, cycling and hiking.

For more information, visit BlueMoonMiami.com.

On Dec. 12 Biscayne National Park kicked off the 10th year of its Family Fun Fest.

As park ranger Gary Bremen said, “In a season of so much hustle and bustle, taking time to slow down and appreciate the beauty of the natural world can be a much-needed break.”

Participants could stop at stations located around the visitor center to discover holiday-themed interactive and hands-on activities. These included making ornaments out of real Christmas tree worms that live off South Florida’s shores, “A Biscayne Carol” (a twist on the Dickens classic) and posting New Year’s eco-resolutions to the Resolution tree.

Kids received a paper passport that was punched at each station that he or she completed and they received prizes for completing all stations. Each family received native poinsettia plants to take home and enjoy throughout the year.

Family Fun Fest takes place on the second Sunday of every month from December through April. The series receives funding from the Captain Bob Lewis Billfish Challenge and the Bobby Duryea Memorial Fund at the South Florida National Parks Trust. Additional support this month comes from Pro Native Consulting, the Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserves and a host of dedicated volunteers.

Future Family Fun Fest events in the 2010-2011 season are these:

Jan. 9: Musical Misfits (as Bremen described the event, “What if a guitarfish, a fiddler crab, a trumpetfish and a spotted drum formed a band?”)

Feb. 13: Keeping Up with the Joneses on Feb.13 (celebrating Black History Month with a look back at the Jones Family of Porgy Key)

March 13: Alien Invaders (Biscayne is invaded by aliens)

April 10: BioBlitz Rewind (last April, thousands of people helped identify more than 800 species of plants and animals in just 24 hours as part of the National Geographic BioBlitz)

The Dante Fascell Visitor Center is located at 9700 SW 328 Street, nine miles east of Homestead.

Reef Safe SunCare, based in Ormond Beach, has launched a sunscreen that’s biodegradable in freshwater and saltwater and protects against insects. South Florida Adventures’ editor David Raterman recently tested the product while kayaking for five days in the backcountry of the Florida Keys. He says it worked great warding off sunburn, mosquitoes and no-see-ums.

The new product, BackCountry, is an SPF 30+ sunscreen with added natural citronella. It comes in a convenient spray bottle that fits easily into a backpack or kayak.

“For our consumers that spend long hours on the water, especially those in the fishing industry, sun damage and insects are two of their biggest annoyances,” said Dan Knorr, the company’s CEO. “After much experimentation to provide a sunscreen that also fends off insects, we’ve had great feedback on BackCountry with citronella from fishing guides and captains.”

According to Reef Safe, 99 percent of its sunscreens biodegrade in oceans, lakes and rivers. Reef Safe says the nontoxic (to sea life) formula in BackCountry gives outdoorsmen piece of mind by protecting their skin and the marine life they respect. The company is concerned “about the damage done to reefs and marine life by the 4,000 to 6,000 metric tons of toxic sunscreens estimated to wash off swimmers into the oceans every year.”

For more information, including where to buy BackCountry, visit ReefSafeSuncare.com.

United Spirit of America, a personal care product company based in Boynton Beach, has launched a line of hygiene and toiletry care products designed to meet the needs of soldiers as well as outdoor enthusiasts and fishermen. All products are reportedly made with 100 percent biodegradable ingredients that cleanse and protect skin and hair but do not damage the environment.

Basic Edition is a product line designed for everyday use by military professionals, outdoor enthusiasts and law enforcement personnel. This line includes three-in-one products, such as the shampoo + body wash + shaving lather, antibacterial formulas that reportedly kill 99.9 percent of viruses and bacteria (including the H1N1 virus), deodorants and more.

The Outpost Edition products are military grade specifically designed for water-restricted environments. They are aimed to provide high protection against the harmful effects of the sun, wind, biting insects, and bacterial and fungal infections. Most products in this line are unscented. Outpost products, though made for the military, are good for hunters, boaters and hikers in water restricted conditions that demand no-scent products.

For more details about these and other product lines from the company, or to find where to buy the products, contact 305-907-0765 or www.USA-Spirit.com.

United Spirit of America is a woman-minority owned corporation specializing in personal care products for the military, law enforcement, homeland security, and outdoors and travel industries.

Mosaic Outdoor Club of South Florida, a Jewish club named after Moses, “the original outdoor Jew,” has announced upcoming events for members and nonmembers. Gentiles are welcome to participate.

On Dec. 24 is a campout at Markham Park in Sunrise. Attendees should arrive after 3 p.m. on the Friday. A barbecue dinner will be served at about 6 p.m. and afterward people will gather around the campfire for Shabbat songs, games, singing and the traditional Mosaic s’mores.

At dark there will be an organized hike without flashlights and maybe even some caroling in honor of participating Christians.

Bathrooms and showers are available so novice campers don’t need to feel intimidated by the outdoors experience, although there is no electricity. Campers are encouraged to bring their own tents, sleeping bags and other gear, but those who need gear can contact Jodi Gast at 954-829-3160.

On Dec. 25 campers can experience other activities at Markham, such as biking, hiking, volleyball, swimming and rollerblading.

The cost is $17 for Mosaic members and $22 for nonmembers. Children under 5 are free; kids 6 to 17 need to pay $11. Costs include camping fees, dinner and breakfast for campers on Dec. 25. There will be no difference in price for those who come on Dec. 24 but do not sleep over.

Reservations to Gast are required because camping space is limited.

To learn about other Mosaic activities, visit its website.

David Raterman, editor of South Florida Adventures, an outdoor sports media company, thought a series of fitness profiles featuring thriller and mystery novelists would give readers fascinating insight into the minds (and bodies) of novelists they’re interested in.

Raterman is currently writing a series of “celebrity” fitness profiles for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, where he freelanced book, film and other feature stories from 2001 to 2005, so he knows readers enjoy learning about this personal side of pop-culture figures.

And recently the Broward County Library, based in Fort Lauderdale, distributed reader’s guides on Edgar Allan Poe as part of The Big Read, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts. The guide mentions that Poe, who invented the detective story and perfected the horror tale, was a record-breaking distance swimmer, runner and boxer. Of course he also married his 13-year-old cousin and struggled with alcohol before dying penniless at the age of 40.

Nobody’s perfect.

Raterman interviewed Chris Semtner, the curator at Richmond’s Museum of Edgar Allan Poe, who said that when Poe was a teenager he swam more than six miles up the James River in Richmond, Va., against a heavy tide.

According to Semtner, Poe’s swim “was still the subject of newspaper articles a decade afterwards. To this day, Poe’s record has not been broken.”

Edgar Allan Poe: Endurance Athlete!

So these fitness profiles are in the spirit of Poe. At least the young Poe.

In addition to showing a fresh side of the authors, perhaps these profiles will inspire sedentary readers and writers to exercise, and will give new ideas to those already keeping active.

While compiling these fitness profiles, 85 percent of the novelists Raterman contacted said they exercise regularly. Since only 49.6 percent of Americans exercise at least 30 minutes three days a week, he wanted to find out why there was a difference. According to best-selling Edgar nominee PJ Parrish (Kristy Montee), “Maybe it’s because we all sit so long all day staring at a screen. I think when the brain is forced to live in a dream world for so long your body finally says enough!”

Jamie Freveletti’s 2009 debut novel Running from the Devil, which was named the Best First Novel by the International Thriller Writers, is a thriller starring an ultramarathoner. “The best sellers are probably writing full time, so they are not working a day job and their schedule is likely more manageable than someone working all day and writing all night,” she said. “And an award winner implies a driven, focused individual. I’m not saying that you have to be fit to be an award winner, but I never believe in overnight success and I’ll bet that they will all say that they wrote endlessly—late nights and weekends—to get their writing ability to the level that someone might consider an award. That kind of focus seems to me to imply someone with lots of mental energy just needing to be burned off, and after sitting for hours at the computer exercise seems just the thing.”

But the notion of the athletic author goes against conventional thinking, especially for crime novelists. 

As best seller Randy Wayne White says in his profile, “This is going to ruin our reputations as alcoholics!”

Raterman had interviewed several of the authors for previous articles, but some are friends and a few came via publicists. Many of the profiled authors live in Florida while most of the others regularly visit. But Jim DeFelice, who has written and co-written countless best-selling thrillers—even he’s not sure how many—said, “Sorry, no connection to any part of Florida.”

We’ll create a new blog (outside SouthFloridaAdventures.com) for all physically active authors in the United States so let us know about your favorite athletic authors.

Or tell us your favorite athletic characters. Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs is a runner. Dirk Pitt swims. Alex Cross burns calories kicking ass. Who are your favorites?

In our next series, look for a fitness profile on best-selling thriller novelist Brad Meltzer, among others.