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Mavericks

Empire, Oil, Revolution and the Forgotten Battle of World War One

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Mavericks

By: Nick Higham
Narrated by: Nick Higham
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About this listen

 Bloomsbury presents Mavericks, written and read by Nick Higham.

'Wildly exciting' KATE ADIE

'An absolute gem of a book' CAROLINE WYATT

'Beautifully written' LOUIS DE BERNIÈRES

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.©2025 Nick Higham (P)2025 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Military Military & War World War I War Espionage Imperialism
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Excellent tale of the main characters interwoven with the historical narrative, and the multiple perspectives, contemporary and subsequent, on what actually happened and what the characters really did.

Excellent tale and insight on a forgotten episode

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