Rugged superheroes are not supposed to have real lives. They are supposed to emerge from the mists of legend, like Indiana Jones, to perform some heroic feats of discovery – or perhaps to bring the world back from the brink of disaster – and then they must fade back into the box until mankind calls on them again. They are not supposed to get married, have children, grow vegetables in their garden and retire to France.

So it came as a huge surprise recently to meet a fellow journalist by the name of Chris Hoare, who is the son of Mike Hoare, the semi-legendary mercenary leader who attempted an abortive coup against the Marxist government of the Seychelles in 1981 and was imprisoned for three years for his pains. If anyone thinks of Mike Hoare at all, it is in terms of a faded newspaper photograph of the returning mercenaries, with Mike smiling rather ruefully from the steps of the plane that has brought him back to South Africa and reckoning. But there was a lot more to Mike than that. And thankfully he has wielded a gifted pen in order to write down the stories of his life. And these are indeed stories worthy of a film script. This is a man with ‘Adventure’ as his middle name. He has written five books, three of which are about his mercenary adventures and one intriguingly called The Road to Kalamata. However, it is his latest book that had me spellbound. It is called: Mokoro – a cry for help! The title is, quite frankly, not that alluring. The blurb also doesn’t really compete with Agatha Christie: “In this book Mike gives a true account of his adventures in then-Bechuanaland: crossing the Kalahari Desert on his own, exploring Ngamiland in search of the ‘Lost City of the Kalahari’, his visit to the Tsodillo Hills and a chance meeting with a crocodile hunter which changed the course of his life.” Sounds a bit like “What I did on my holidays”, I thought, with an inward groan. But the book captivated me from the start. One can consume it in one sitting – which is a good thing as it is hard to put down. Mike writes in a galloping, eye-witness-type style with flashes of droll humour. The first half of the book tells the story of Mike’s growing interest in finding the Lost City of the Kalahari, which most people believe to be a figment of the imagination. Mike’s research leads him to meet up with some rather interesting characters and they plan an expedition into the Kalahari to find either the lost city itself, or the natural outcrop of rock that looked enough like a ruined city to start the legend. Just before kick-off, however, his companion cannot join him. Undaunted, Mike sets off on his own.

The book is peppered with fascinating information – I never knew, for instance, that Mafeking was for a while the only capital city in the world that actually lay outside its own country’s borders. There are some hilarious anecdotes to do with the characters he meets – my favourite is his description of the town of Serowe, which was visited by Edward, Prince of Wales in 1925. All events in the town are therefore divided into occasions before or after the prince’s visit: “Many are the stories that are still told about the handsome prince, his glittering entourage and his personal charm. But the story I liked best, apocryphal though it might well be, concerns the grand party given in his honour at Palapye. As you may imagine all the local belles for miles around clamoured to meet the prince, a signal honour. Several Afrikaner girls in the neighbourhood received invitations to the ball. One stunning beauty actually danced with the prince. As he was showing her back to her table he thanked her and remarked that he liked the way she rolled her r’s. ‘Ag man,’ she replied, ‘it’s only these blerry high-heeled shoes!’”

Mike’s expeditions across the Kalahari (he did several) actually became tourism trips and he says that he could regard himself as the father of tourism to Botswana. The second half of the book takes on a darker tone: he now tells the story of how he decides, along with a young wife, to spend a year living in the Okavango Delta, living off the land. It all starts quite light-heartedly; he selects his land, meets the local chief, plans his Robinson Crusoe adventure and sets up camp. At first things go splendidly – life is just one long song of fishing, hunting, growing vegetables and teaching the local children to speak English.

But then disaster strikes and the rest of the book is one desperate race against time and the elements to prevent complete catastrophe. It’s a great page-turner and the climax carries quite a punch. Anyone who has visited the Okavango Delta or the Kalahari will love this book – it can be ordered from partner@iafrica.co.za or 031 563 7815.