Welcome to the official site of Matthew Parker, author of Monte Cassino and Panama Fever - a new book about the construction of the Panama Canal.

To build a canal linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans was a heroic dream that spanned four centuries. The human cost was immense: in appalling working conditions, tens of thousands perished fighting the jungle, swamps and mountains of Panama.

It is a story of imperialism, technology, politics, finance, press manipulation, scandal and intrigue, populated by a dazzling cast of idealists and bullies, heroes and conmen. Panama Fever also tells the stories of the ordinary men and women who worked on the canal, evoking everyday life on the construction and depicting the battle on the ground deep in ‘Hell’s Gorge’.

‘An epic tale of human folly and endeavour, beautifully told and researched’ 
John Le Carré

'Few great feats of engineering have been steeped in as much passion and tragedy as the Panama Canal, and no one tells the story better than Matthew Parker. Through meticulous research and vivid, vigorous prose, Parker has captured the frenzy surrounding the canal and the heartbreaking toll that it took on the thousands of men who set off like soldiers to Panama's "Fever Coast," never to return.'
Candice Millard, author of The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey