My Friend the Mercenary (Unabridged) [Audio Download]

This is not usually the sort of book I would go for but having read the extracts in The Times I thought I would give it a whirl and I am glad I did. Once I had picked it up I couldn't put it down.

Th first part of the book covers in gory detail the author's experiences in Liberia as a journalist with the mercenary Nick du Toit who he hired to protect him and the growing friendship between the two men. Not for the squeamish or faint-of- heart.

In the second part of the book the action moves to Simon Mann and the infamous Wonga coup - which luckily for his health and sanity James Brabazon missed out on experiencing personally. If life imitates art, then this is Frederick Forsyth's The Dogs of War writ large and terrible; it is almost as if Simon Mann and his merry band had set out to recreate the novel's plotline except that real-life is not quite so tidy nor good and evil so clearly demarcated. And the emotions and motivatitions it portrays run the full gamut from courage and endurance in great adversity to greed and utter stupidity.

The narrative is gripping and fast-paced and Nick du Toit emerges as the anti-hero who engages our sympathy, if only for his survival against all the odds from the torture and hell of Black Beach prison in Equatorial Guinea.

And having read this, I have just crossed regime-change off my list of 101 Things To Do Before I Die.

I enjoyed this book very much and found it a gripping, informative and often saddening read. I read quickly through the last 100 pages because by that time I'd had enough of the plans of the plunderers and how they go awry. To me the book seemed to be summed up by its title: it was mostly about a friendship and how it endured in extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Alas the real victims (except for Rocket) of the mercenary parasites and their self-serving destruction didn't seem to get much attention at all... oh, sorry, there is a brief paragraph in the acknowledgements at the end of the book. The author is big on the issue of moral choices but I was left wondering what choices the innocent were given... The lack of that left me with a lack of sympathy for the suffering of Nick and his cohorts.

This book packs a mighty punch. A nerve-wrecking story told in sharp, spare and precise prose, it reads more like a thriller than a memoir.

The first section of the book covers Brabazon's experiences in Liberia during that country's brutal civil war. It is an astonishing account, full of the worst horrors of modern conflict: marauding child soldiers, executions and cannibalism of prisoners. The tales of atrocities are striking for the author's use of detail ("the close-up, messy process of gutting a human being") and his honesty. He does not stint in describing the complex emotions he felt as a witness to such events - or in tracing how long weeks on the frontline messed with his moral compass.

Yet the story is far from unremittingly bleak. Brabazon captures the humour and spirit of the characters caught up in the war, from the spliff-smoking rebel commander Deku to the retinue of refugees, journalists and spies he meets along the way. It is also strangely redemptive to read how, amid the carnage, he forged a lasting friendship with his shady mercenary bodyguard, Nick du Toit.

Beyond the zipping bullets and booming rocket-propelled grenades, the book is also compelling when the author describes the difficult process of coming home: having flashbacks of rotting corpses while on a date with his girlfriend, for example. It is a powerful and, again, sharply honest insight into the trauma that his experiences inflicted.

The final third disentangles the story of the coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea, the `project' that Nick du Toit took on after Liberia. It offers a fascinating insider's view into the world of modern espionage and just how one sets about toppling a government in the twenty-first century. No doubt essential reading for anyone with an interest in the coup. My one quibble might be that the level of detail in this section can be slightly overwhelming - and misses some of the humanity and simple nail-biting tension of the Liberian stories.

Yet it's a minor point and overall the book deserves five stars: if you are looking for a true story with action, adventure and insight, you will not find anything better.