Where Soldiers Fear To Tread

'Engrossing... [Burnett] understands the mix of altruism, adrenalin, financial reward and companionship that drives many aid workers... He sees the way that the various aid agencies (even competing UN agencies) work against each other to gain credit and press exposure. And he learns, through bitter experience, how savage people can be when they are desperate.'

Sunday Times

'Haunting...Burnetts message is simple, and it is not new: being an aid worker in the field is dangerous... Different is the clarity and passion with which he delivers it.'

Caroline Moorehead, Sunday Telegraph

He writes well and convincingly . . . with a minimum of jargon and an eye for detail

Sunday Telegraph

If you've ever sent 20 bucks off to a relief organization, you owe it to yourself to read this book

Michael Maren

'Part reportage, part memoir, part polemic, Burnett's account of his misadventures in Somalia is a journey into a heartless darkness. This book is a tough and often painful read not simply for it's wrenching accounts of human suffering and bureaucratic incompetence, but also because Burnett documents, with admirable lack of self pity, his own loss of innocence through its various stages of shock, bewilderment, incredulity, frustration and contempt.'

Evening Standard

'The book speaks well to the complicated web of motivations involved with relief work in high-risk zones. Be it altruism or ego, a desire for adventure or isolation, the compulsion for relief workers to leave lives of relative comfort for dangerous war zone makes for a compelling take on human motivation'

Financial Times