What is a jaded rock journalist doing dodging landmines to talk to mercenaries and terrorists? And what kind of conversation can a man who prefers hunting for perfect three-minute pop songs and tubes of beer have with devotees of fasting and ferocity? Sarajevo. Jerusalem. Kabul. Belfast. Kosovo. Gaza. Basra. New York City. Every place where recent history advertises the stubbornness, intolerance, bloodlust, and cowardice that sully our collective record, there the intrepid Andrew Mueller goes. With considerable skill, Mueller skids around the globe from failed state to ravaged war zone to desolate no-man's-land to try to unpick why we humans seem so prone to plucking war from the jaws of peace. En route, he meets various influential panjandrums (Al Gore, Gerry Adams, Bono, Paddy Ashdown), any number of assorted warlords and revolutionaries, and a sprinkling of peacemakers and do-gooders. He also manages to get shot at a couple of times, locked up once, and taken on a guided tour by one of the world's most infamous terrorist organizations. It's like a Bond film with much, much less sex, and might appear for that and other reasons to be substantially a story of disappointment. Yet it's a surprisingly sunny book given the mire in which he finds himself. And it is a notably entertaining and eye-opening tour of the world's moral basements in the vein of P. J. O'Rourke's Holidays in Hell.

The Adventurist is one man's story, a story that will change the way you think about travel, survival, where you have been, and where you are going.

Enter the world of Robert Young Pelton (if you dare), adventurer extraordinaire, author of Come Back Alive and The World's Most Dangerous Places (required reading at the CIA), and host of his TV series, Robert Young Pelton's The World's Most Dangerous Places.

A breakneck autobiography, The Adventurist blasts across six continents and spans four decades of hard-core living with its dispatches of mayhem, adventure in exotic locales, survival against formidable odds, memories of the pivotal events, and memorable portraits of the people that have shaped Pelton's obsessive spirit.

Be shelled with the Talibs on the front lines of Afghanistan; hang out with hit men and rebels in the Philippines; survive a plane crash in Borneo; narrowly escape a terrorist bombing in Africa; dance with headhunters in Sarawak; crew with pirates in the Sulu Sea; explore the events that led Pelton to his unusual calling (including how he honed his survival skills at "the toughest boys' school in North America"); and, perhaps most important, discover Pelton's secret mission--to understand the hearts and minds of the people he meets.

The Adventurist is a real book about the real world, an inspirational read that takes you places you might never willingly go.


From the Hardcover edition.

As the author of The World's Most Dangerous Places, Robert Young Pelton has come to know some of the most unusual and dangerous individuals in the world. In The Hunter, the Hammer, and Heaven he introduces an extraordinary cast of characters from three of the most war-ravaged countries on earth - the West African country of Sierra Leone, the breakaway republic of Chechnya, and a mysterious land in the South Pacific called Bougainville, In each location he provides a firsthand exploration of important new developments in conflict, and a unique insight into the forces that are shaping the world's future. In the Hunter, Pelton journeys into the postapocalyptic darkness of Sierra Leone - a small, shattered country emerging from a decade of cruel and nihilistic warfare. As he wanders through the world's most expensive peace-keeping mission, he meets an ex-mercenary who hunts pirates, a ragtag militia whose members believe they have supernatural powers, and white men with "diamond fever." In the Hammer, Pelton enters the jihad in Chechnya with three traveling companions - an American mujahid who wants to die, a young woman entering her first war as a journalist, and a grumpy cameraman. Pelton brings his motley crew along the secret muj trail from America to Georgia to meet the Chechen rebels as the Russian Army sends in a massive army of 150,000 soldiers to subdue the anarchistic republic in their own "War on Terror." His odyssey through terrorist-filled bunkers, suicide squad-manned front lines, SCUD missile attacks, and terrified citizens leads to a desperate escape from the beleaguered city of Grozny. In Heaven, Pelton chronicles his two-year odyssey to meet one of the most elusive rebelleaders in the world - an enigmatic man named Francis Ona who has survived numerous assassination attempts and who threatens to kill any white man who sets foot on his tiny island in the South Pacific. In the course of his travels Pelton meets a cast of colorful and sometimes hilarious characters, from a drunken guide who offers his niece to visitors, to accountants who offer complete armies to desperate governments. As Pelton makes his way to the misty island of Bougainville and closer to Francis Ona, he discovers that the mysterious leader is convinced that Pelton is coming to kill him. Filled with tension and intrigue, The Hunter, The Hammer, and Heaven offers a dramatic vision of war and the people who survive it.