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Mule Train
Border Policeman Ishmael Khan has spent his life in the stunning mountains of the Hindu Kush, on the western edge of the Himalayas. His current mission is to find out what is happening to the foreign backpackers disappearing in the area.Raseem Hasni dreams of wealth, status and proving to his father that he is a good businessman. In between smoking too much dope, Raseem's business is running heroin out of Pakistan using foreign drug mules he intimidates into working for him.Matt Peterson is depressed and in danger of being sacked. He's read and re-read his dead fiancée's favourite travel books and decides to resign his job and travel to the mountains of Pakistan, where they had planned to spend their honeymoon trekking.Annie MacDonald is fed up and stuck in a dead-end job in London where she recently lost out on a promotion to someone with old-school connections. What better way to kick-start her life than resigning her job, taking the legacy left by her grandfather, and heading to his beloved Pakistan looking for adventure?Four lives come together in the remote and spectacular mountains bordering Afghanistan and explode in a deadly cocktail of treachery, betrayal and violence.Written with a deep love of Pakistan and the Pakistani people, Mule Train will sweep you from Karachi in the south to Chitral, Gilgit and the Shandur Pass in the north, through the dangerous borderland alongside Afghanistan, in an action packed adventure that will keep you gripped throughout.
364 pages, Paperback
First published April 13, 2013
66 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 17, 2013
Carry on up the Khyber (without the innuendo) - Novel set in Pakistan
This is a backpacking novel that any of you heading out to the opium growing areas of the world need to read! It won't put you off going because the author vividly captures the life and people - in this instance Pakistan - but it will encourage you to be wary of chance encounters! All set against the beautiful and imposing backdrop of the Himalaya.
Helpfully to start with, there is a small map of Pakistan (although the bordering countries could also be usefully included in the next edition, as a lot of the action heads towards Afghanistan). It would also have been lovely to have a bit of background about the author, as he clearly knows this part of the world really well and writes with passion about the country, the food and the customs.
The opening pages of the book set the scene nicely for the ensuing encounters between Matt and Annie, Ricky (also known as Raseem Hasni) and Ishmael Khan, border policeman, and various other characters who glide in and out of the storyline. It is a good story and the writing itself is smooth and very readable, as the various backpackers set out on their journeys and chance upon each other. From hostel to hotel, via tuk-tuk and bus, each character has his/her own backstory, which drives each onward and deeper into the country. "Four lives come together in the remote and spectacular mountains bordering Afghanistan and explode in a deadly cocktail of treachery, betrayal and violence". And there you have the nub of the storyline.
This is a novel that also informs. Inspiration is drawn from Eric Newby's wonderful travelogue A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush and Rudyard Kipling's Kim, both are mentioned in the novel. Annie travels on the same train from Peshawar into the Khyber tribal area that her Grandfather had described to her as a child, which she finds thrilling - and we thrill along with her. Little snippets bring understanding to the reader - for example the men of Chitral and Gilgit now play polo but not so long ago were fighting each other. And it wasn't the British who introduced the locals to the game of Polo; Polo in fact originated in Persia and came from there to Britain. In many ways, this hugely informative book brings this multifaceted country to life, its history but it also brings the hazards of opium production and drug smuggling to the fore. Beware the traveller who enters this region in a naive state of mind, and further clouds it with drug use whilst there. Trouble could well lie ahead!
I certainly felt hooked by this book, and looked forward to picking it up again after each break in reading; the storyline and the region come together really well. The plot does, however, become a bit threadbare as the novel heads towards the end, meandering over the potholed roads and rugged terrain of the north of the country in search of its conclusion. The adjective 'nervous' was a favoured term and was gratingly over-used. And Ricky and Chris were the least plausible characters: the former because his chance encounter that is central to the book seemed too staged; the latter - in his role of Customs Official - seemed to have carte blanche over his expense account and activities, which seemed an unlikely scenario as an employee of The UK Border Agency (who hopefully in reality has a more structured response than mere whim and one drugs arrest at Heathrow when it comes to combatting drug smuggling and searching for disappearing UK nationals). In the next edition no doubt it will be possible to get rid of the volley of hashtags that appeared in our copy from about the middle of the book, and also to rectify some of the small typos that popped up intermittently - although these didn't really affect the overall positive reading experience.
This is a backpacking novel that any of you heading out to the opium growing areas of the world need to read! It won't put you off going because the author vividly captures the life and people - in this instance Pakistan - but it will encourage you to be wary of chance encounters! All set against the beautiful and imposing backdrop of the Himalaya.
Helpfully to start with, there is a small map of Pakistan (although the bordering countries could also be usefully included in the next edition, as a lot of the action heads towards Afghanistan). It would also have been lovely to have a bit of background about the author, as he clearly knows this part of the world really well and writes with passion about the country, the food and the customs.
The opening pages of the book set the scene nicely for the ensuing encounters between Matt and Annie, Ricky (also known as Raseem Hasni) and Ishmael Khan, border policeman, and various other characters who glide in and out of the storyline. It is a good story and the writing itself is smooth and very readable, as the various backpackers set out on their journeys and chance upon each other. From hostel to hotel, via tuk-tuk and bus, each character has his/her own backstory, which drives each onward and deeper into the country. "Four lives come together in the remote and spectacular mountains bordering Afghanistan and explode in a deadly cocktail of treachery, betrayal and violence". And there you have the nub of the storyline.
This is a novel that also informs. Inspiration is drawn from Eric Newby's wonderful travelogue A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush and Rudyard Kipling's Kim, both are mentioned in the novel. Annie travels on the same train from Peshawar into the Khyber tribal area that her Grandfather had described to her as a child, which she finds thrilling - and we thrill along with her. Little snippets bring understanding to the reader - for example the men of Chitral and Gilgit now play polo but not so long ago were fighting each other. And it wasn't the British who introduced the locals to the game of Polo; Polo in fact originated in Persia and came from there to Britain. In many ways, this hugely informative book brings this multifaceted country to life, its history but it also brings the hazards of opium production and drug smuggling to the fore. Beware the traveller who enters this region in a naive state of mind, and further clouds it with drug use whilst there. Trouble could well lie ahead!
I certainly felt hooked by this book, and looked forward to picking it up again after each break in reading; the storyline and the region come together really well. The plot does, however, become a bit threadbare as the novel heads towards the end, meandering over the potholed roads and rugged terrain of the north of the country in search of its conclusion. The adjective 'nervous' was a favoured term and was gratingly over-used. And Ricky and Chris were the least plausible characters: the former because his chance encounter that is central to the book seemed too staged; the latter - in his role of Customs Official - seemed to have carte blanche over his expense account and activities, which seemed an unlikely scenario as an employee of The UK Border Agency (who hopefully in reality has a more structured response than mere whim and one drugs arrest at Heathrow when it comes to combatting drug smuggling and searching for disappearing UK nationals). In the next edition no doubt it will be possible to get rid of the volley of hashtags that appeared in our copy from about the middle of the book, and also to rectify some of the small typos that popped up intermittently - although these didn't really affect the overall positive reading experience.
April 2, 2015
I received this book as part of a good reads giveaway.
I will admit that I was extremely pleasantly surprised by this book. The book follows each of the main characters and their path towards the final show down. The areas are very well described as are the local people.
Each of the main character have an important part to play and the author cleverly allows each character to follow their natural line without forcing anyone to do anything you wouldn't expect of them, for example Chris, Senior Customs Investigation officer, heads to Pakistan after finally having a tip off on who is forcing drug mules to smuggle heroin. Using his network in Pakistan, to find further information, leads to Ishmael Khan hunting for the Ricky and saving Matt, Annie, and Isabelle. It is also Ishmael Khan who is ultimately responsible for Saving them from prison.
The only reason this book didn't get 5 stars is that I really didn't like Annie.
I will admit that I was extremely pleasantly surprised by this book. The book follows each of the main characters and their path towards the final show down. The areas are very well described as are the local people.
Each of the main character have an important part to play and the author cleverly allows each character to follow their natural line without forcing anyone to do anything you wouldn't expect of them, for example Chris, Senior Customs Investigation officer, heads to Pakistan after finally having a tip off on who is forcing drug mules to smuggle heroin. Using his network in Pakistan, to find further information, leads to Ishmael Khan hunting for the Ricky and saving Matt, Annie, and Isabelle. It is also Ishmael Khan who is ultimately responsible for Saving them from prison.
The only reason this book didn't get 5 stars is that I really didn't like Annie.
January 3, 2016
Loved reading this book. I received it in the giveaway. Good story line with unexpected twists.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews