Mavericks

<p><b>The forgotten story of a group of British mavericks who took on an impossible mission with a daring and fearless approach.</b><br><br>As the First World War drew to a close and regimes began to collapse across Europe, British officials plotted <b>a daring campaign</b> to send <b>an unlikely band of maverick soldiers, diplomats and spies </b>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. <br><br>It was<b> an almost impossible task</b>, but <i>Mavericks</i> 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 <b>Lionel Dunsterville</b>, the inspiration for Kipling’s Stalky and commander of the expedition; <b>Ranald MacDonell</b>, a Scottish aristocrat and diplomat who smuggled millions of roubles for the war effort; <b>Edward Noel</b>, a seemingly indestructible soldier who was held hostage for sixty-five days in horrific conditions;<b> Toby Rawlinson</b>, the younger brother of one of Britain’s most senior generals and a brilliant inventor; and <b>Reginald Teague-Jones</b>, a spy who printed his own currency and would eventually emerge as an author at the age of ninety-nine. <br><br>Drawing on personal diaries, memoirs and once-secret government archives, <b><i>Mavericks</i> brings to life a cast of eccentric heroes </b>who survived against all odds to tell their extraordinary tales. This is a propulsive story of boldness and intrigue, <b>set in a forgotten corner of the Great War</b> where the rules were made to be broken.</p>