Arthur Conan Doyle 
The Crime of the Congo 

Although Arthur Conan Doyle is now best remembered as the creator of the timeless Sherlock Holmes series of detective stories, he was also something of a social activist in his day who used his acclaim to shed light on injustices. In The Crime of the Congo, Conan Doyle builds a devastating case against the Congo Free State, a kind of sociopolitical experiment undertaken by Belgium’s King Leopold II, under whose rule indigenous Africans were subjected to horrible maltreatment. The Crime of the Congo tackles a difficult topic, but this is Arthur Conan Doyle at his rabble-rousing best.