Secret Expedition of the German Reich to the Hindu Kush
Following a plan devised by the orientalist Freiherr Max von Oppenheim, sixty men set out by way of the Baghdad Railway, on horseback and on camels, through deserts and mountains. Their goal: to persuade the Emir of Afghanistan and the Pashtun tribes, in the name of Islam, to launch an attack on British India.
The young naval radio operator Sebastian Stichnote lies with his ship off the coast of Albania. From the cramped tannery of his brothers in Giesing, a longing for distant places and the many-voiced technology of radio has drawn him to the sea. Radio gives him the feeling of being connected to the entire cosmos. When World War I begins, the outmatched German fleet is forced to flee through the Mediterranean to Constantinople. After the first naval battles, Stichnote is eager to leave his ship as quickly as possible and joins a secret expedition to Kabul as a radio officer. Their journey takes them through Syria, Baghdad, Tehran, Isfahan, and finally across the Persian desert. In the end, the success of the expedition depends on Stichnote – who must break with everything he once held sacred.
"One of the best historical novels in a long time." ZDF
"One of the most breathtaking reads of the year … Risiko sent me into a true reading frenzy." ARD
