The true story of an attempted coup by British and South African mercenaries in Equatorial Guinea in 2004 is told by journalist Adam Roberts. The case eventually embroiled Mark Thatcher, son of the British ex-prime minister Margaret Thatcher, as well as Simon Mann, an SAS-trained soldier and aristocrat. It is a story of oil, mercenaries, breathtaking greed and a daring plot that goes terribly wrong. Some 70 men are thrown into terrifying African prisons. An establishment Washington DC bank is destroyed. But the scramble for Africa's oil goes on.

The Wonga Coup was published in June 2006 in Britain and in August 2006 in the United States (paperback to be published June 2007). Buy from Amazon.co.uk  or from Amazon.com.

New York Times

"offers an intimate, behind-the-scenes look at precisely how an aristocratic renegade... can amass an army to depose an African leader."

Daily Mail
"Takes readers into a world where slippery chancers and thuggish ex-special forces types...rub soldiers with spooks and dodgy financiers"

Observer

"Adam Roberts's newsy, investigative analysis not only reads like pulp fiction, but it has walk-on roles for Frederick Forsyth and a certain JH Archer."

Sunday Times

"...riveting and superbly researched... This is a brilliant, mordant, blackly comic read..."