Congo by Michael Crichton (Mass Market Paperback)

Deep in the heart of the darkest region of the Congo, near the legendary ruins of the Lost City of Zinj, an eight-person field expedition dies mysteriously and brutally in a matter of minutes. Ten thousand miles away, at the Houston-based Earth Resources Technology Services, Inc., supervisor Karen Ross--watches a gruesome video transmission of that ill-fated team: a camp destroyed, tents crushed and torn, equipment scattered in the mud alongside bodies...and the grainy, moving image of a dark, blurred shape. In San Francisco, primatologist Peter Elliot works with Amy, an extraordinary gorilla with a 620 "sign" vocabulary and a fondness for finger painting. Her recent drawing matches, with stunning accuracy, the frayed, brittle pages of a Portuguese print dating back to 1642...a drawing of the ancient lost city. Immediately, a new expedition is sent into the Congo, descending into a secret world where the only way out may be through the grisliest death....