{"product_id":"dead-mans-motorcycle-cornelis-van-houte-9798255598847","title":"Dead Man's Motorcycle: A Novel of Congo","description":"A Belgian property lawyer inherits two things from his uncle Maurice: a 1977 Yamaha XS750 that has never been ridden, and a colonial land deed that has been in a drawer for thirty years. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe deed covers 14,000 hectares in the volcanic highlands south of Goma. On the paper: vacant land, mineral rights, a registration date of November 1952. On the ground: a village, a cemetery, mango trees planted a century ago, and a family that has farmed the same fields for four generations. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eCornelis Frost ships the motorcycle to Matadi and rides east. In Kinshasa he meets Amina Mbeki-Lwa, a Congolese lawyer who has spent eight years building a case against the Sicomines mining concession - a $7 billion infrastructure deal negotiated under documented corruption, locked behind an arbitration clause that has made it legally untouchable. She has forty-seven folders of evidence. She is missing one document. The document is the deed. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTogether they ride from Kinshasa to Goma on roads the UN classifies as Category C and D, through a country where the M23 moves through villages at night and the Security Council takes note. At the end of the road: a retired Rwandan colonel with a terminal diagnosis and a dossier. A village called Kitembe. The land itself. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eDead Man's Motorcycle\u003c\/i\u003e is a legal thriller without a courtroom, a road novel without romance, and a reckoning with the distance between what international law provides and what it has so far produced. It asks one question: when the cage was built on a corrupt foundation, is it still a cage? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe law does not wait for perfect cases. It develops through imperfect ones.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Cornelis Van Houte\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798255598847\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 04\/08\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 280\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.83lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.59d","brand":"Cornelis Van Houte","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48517201101055,"sku":"9798255598847","price":19.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_791ecfb9-039a-4c34-93d4-caff5557fdb0.jpg?v=1778730595","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/dead-mans-motorcycle-cornelis-van-houte-9798255598847","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}