Engaging...descriptions of walking through the bush, of sweltering heat, sweat and swelling blisters are juxtaposed against moments of beauty...a test of endurance
Aminatta Forna, Sunday Telegraph

Butcher’s book is packed with incident… fascinating, harrowing and eventful
Joan Smith, Independent

Butcher writes with candour and humour
Sam Kiley, Scotsman

Tim Butcher would probably admit that he was born into the wrong era. He is really a Victorian explorer endowed with the sterling grit of that age, which has carried him across the Congo and now through West Africa’s jungle heartland… Butcher writes with candour and humour.
Sam Kiley, Evening Standard

A brave book by a writer of skill and principle… he exposes the toxic cocktail of colonial exploitation, tribal conflict, ritual violence and blood diamonds that spits out regional monsrosities such as Charles Taylor… an admirable book.
Brian Schofield, Sunday Times

Greene himself would have admired Butcher’s daring … this is a very fine … travel book … his practical homage reminds us just how great, perceptive, and still relevant Greene is
John Sutherland, Financial Times

This is a very fine, very depressing, travel book
John Sutherland, Financial Times

This an engaging, well-written book. Anyone who enjoyed Blood River will enjoy this. The narrative skilfully interweaves Greene’s experiences with that of the author and the history and the anthropology of the territory through which he is passing
Chris Mullin, Daily Telegraph

A former foreign correspondent with an explorer’s heart … Tim Butcher has a respect and affection for West Africa that is genuine and touching … He brings out the exuberance of wit of its people, tries to empathise with their suffering and understand their demons – temporal and spiritual.
Neil Derbyshire, Daily Mail

The unflinching descriptions of the horrors of the recent wars in both countries are hard to shake from the mind.
Financial Times, Christmas round up

A clear-sighted view of the recent atrocities in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Hugh Thomson, Independent, Christmas round up

A multi-layered and thought-provoking account of the attractions of danger and his encounters with the devastation of ritual violence, child soldiers, blood diamonds and the 'devil' guarding remote jungle communities
Aimee Shalan, Guardian

Butcher’s research, combined with the inescapable fact that not a lot is widely known in the west about the place, makes for a fairly entertaining read as the author, his companion and two guides stay faithful to Greene’s trek, hacking and plodding along this 350-mile path. This is a well-written account of an unusual adventure, even if the “killing fields” seem a long way away
Julian Fleming, Sunday Business Post

Butcher’s travelogue is a mix of nervous adventuring through a landscape littered with shell casings, and historical assessment peppered with Greeniana. Sobering and illuminating
James Urquhart, Financial Times

A brave and wholly engaging narrative.
National Geographic Traveller

'Chasing the Devil is an adventure story, complete with swinging rope bridges, murderous chimpanzees, deathly diseases, heart-eating cannibals and the shadowy omnipotence of the “village devil” '
Times Literary Supplement