Let’s face it, great works of literature are being reimagined through the prism of weird novels about historical figures. Every week, Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard come up with a new book in their “Killing” series, each title of which details a conspiracy behind the deaths of folks like John F. Kennedy, George Patton and the comic Gallagher. There are also the supernatural efforts in which Abraham Lincoln is cast as a vampire hunter or “Pride and Prejudice” is populated with zombies. So, when an advance copy of a novelization about Teddy Roosevelt — about whom there is no shortage of biographies — I feared the worst. Teddy is a voodoo sorcerer. Teddy is a superhero from another galaxy. It was Teddy in the boat — not Santiago — for “The Old Man and the Sea.” BUT ... Shaara is a respected historian whose novelizations of Civil War battles alone are legendary. In “The Old Lion,” Shaara — with unabashed fondness for his subject — recounts Roosevelt’s life with real-time accuracy. The beauty is in the author’s convincing ability to “channel” Teddy’s thoughts and dialogue not just in the major historical moments but, more importantly, in the day-to-day, behind the scenes minutiae that add human context to an often unreported and painful life.