Roy Andrews was an adventurer. Protege to the head of New York's Museum of Natural History, Andrews sets out to prove his patron's theory that mammals had first developed on the continent of Asia. Backed by the exploration-mad financial giants who head up New York society, Andrews outfits the first automotive expedition to the burning sands of Mongolia's Gobi Desert. There he battles the inhospitable climate, the machinations of the local government and the ever-present threat of violent bandits and marauding warlords. In a quest that would cost him his eyesight, his happy marriage and, very nearly his life, The Dragon Hunter's discoveries add immeasurably to mankind's knowledge of evolution.

• Richard Kiley