Lendle

Chris Hughes was the first western reporter into Iraq after 9/11, the first into Saddam’s secret bunker and the only one to visit Osama bin Laden’s mountain lair. He was also the only western journalist present when American Marines killed and wounded unarmed demonstrators in Fallujah, sparking the savage insurgency. He’s survived car-jackings and missile attacks, watched mothers weep over the skeletons of sons dragged from mass graves and joined mercenaries flying crates of guns out of Baghdad. Hughes has been to every major trouble spot in Iraq in a dozen visits, mixing with the SAS, British mercenaries and ordinary Iraqis; in “Road Trip To Hell”, he tells their stories with wit and irreverence in a very readable style. He admits he’s no expert on the Middle East - ‘I wanted to call this book “Clueless in Gaza”,’ he writes, ‘but George W Bush rarely invades places with potential for witty literary allusion’ - but he has a fine eye for detail and black humour and gives a unique insight into a terrible, crazy war.