No Mercy: A Journey to the Heart of the Congo
by: O'Hanlon, Redmond

Hardcover. New York, Alfred Knopf, 1st, 1997, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, 462 pages. Hardcover with dust jacket. Clean, tight copy with minor wear to covers and edges. A modern classic of travel literature: "Ostensibly a quest for Mokele-mbembe, the Congo dinosaur , this story of travel through the jungles and swamp forests of the northern Congo is Tolstoyan in its depth, scope and range of characters, and as vivid as Nabokov in its image and detail. A portrait of a country, it is alive with natural history: eagles and parrots, hornbills and sunbirds, forest cobras and crocodiles, gorillas and elephants. A search for the meaning of sorcery, the purpose of religion (and a celebration of the comfort and mysteries of science), it is also an adventure told with great narrative force. Of course there is a darker side to the Congo, and that too is recorded here." Kazuo Ishiguro called this a "unique messy masterpiece."