Headlines and news stories sometimes render terror and mayhem into brief reports and statistics. Lisa J. Shannon's latest book presents the face-to-face startling, personal reality of awful experiences on the other side of the world.

The book Mama Koko and the Hundred Gunmenemerged from the friendship of the Portland, Oregon-based writer/human rights activist with an expatriate Congolese woman living in her hometown. Shannon and her friend, Mama Koko's daughter Francisca, went to the Congo on a fact-finding mission - it was not a happy tourism expedition but it was a journey of discovery.

They traveled into a land "under the shadow" of infamous, vicious Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army. Violence attributed to this man and his "soldiers" is horrifying. The U.S. State Department currently offers a $5 million reward for information leading to "the arrest, transfer, or conviction" of Kony.

Mama Koko, her daughter Francisca and writer Shannon tell a story of an idyllic existence turned into an era of terror, bloodshed and death by the lawlessness in their Congo homeland.

Shannon, who became a celebrated activist after being inspired by a segment on The Oprah Winfrey Show, also is author of another book about desperate conditions in the Congo, A Thousand Sisters: My Journey into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman. She testified before the U.S. Congress about these conditions.

She also is a frequent contributor to Nicholas Kristof's The New York Times blog, On the Ground.

Respected Kirkus Reviews calls Mama Koko and the Hundred Gunmen "a highly personal and memorable story" and notes that it ends with a section titled "What You Can Do Before Setting This Book Down."