MAVERICKS

‘Wildly exciting’ KATE ADIE
‘Thoroughly gripping … An action-packed tale’ JUSTIN MAROZZI, THE TIMES
‘ Beautifully written’ LOUIS DE BERNIÈRES
‘ Stimulating… entertaining and instructive ‘ JULIAN EVANS, DAILY TELEGRAPH

The forgotten story of a group of British mavericks who took on an impossible mission with a daring and fearless approach.

As the First World War drew to a close and regimes began to collapse across Europe, British officials plotted a daring campaign to send an unlikely band of maverick soldiers, diplomats and spies to the chaotic region around the Caspian Sea. Their mission: to block the advance of the Turks, to hold back the rising Bolsheviks and prevent a Turkish-inspired jihad overwhelming India, and to secure the vital supply of oil from Baku.

It was an almost impossible task , but Mavericks tells the gripping stories of the remarkable and enterprising characters at the centre of it all, who would be tested to the limit. There was Lionel Dunsterville , the inspiration for Kipling’s Stalky and commander of the expedition; Ranald MacDonell , a Scottish aristocrat and diplomat who smuggled millions of roubles for the war effort; Edward Noel , a seemingly indestructible soldier who was held hostage for sixty-five days in horrific conditions; Toby Rawlinson , the younger brother of one of Britain’s most senior generals and a brilliant inventor; and Reginald Teague-Jones , a spy who printed his own currency and would eventually emerge as an author at the age of ninety-nine.

Drawing on personal diaries, memoirs and once-secret government archives, Mavericks brings to life a cast of eccentric heroes who survived against all odds to tell their extraordinary tales. This is a propulsive story of boldness and intrigue, set in a forgotten corner of the Great War where the rules were made to be broken.