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The lost embassy
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 12, 2015
I have no idea how this book was received when it was first released and frankly cannot remember having ever heard of it or author Adam Fergusson before. But having stumbled across this volume in one of my favorite used book stores, I enjoyed almost every page of this.
Originally, published in 1972, Fergusson somehow presents us with the perfect book for our times (2014)! An entertaining example of the comic-adventure-espionage-world crisis genre that it seems to me the English do so well. Perhaps in this case it’s because the author is the second son from the ranks of the minor nobility, a former Conservative Party Euro-MP, journalist, and an author of both fiction and non-fiction works.
The story begins in the last days of the House of Hapsburg and is set in London and Carpathia – a statelet nestled in the Carpathian Mountains. Eventually this becomes a border region of Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland in the heyday of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. And that’s where the adventure really takes off with student revolutionaries, Hapsburg vintage diplomats and political figures, Soviet soldiers, and two modern day English adventurers. Not a side splitting yarn, it is rather a romp through the Cold War’s annals as all play their respective roles perfectly – sometimes in a perfectly ridiculous manner. It was a perfect read this summer against a backdrop of world events that seemed to echo almost every historical reference that Fergusson wove into his narrative (including a Zeppelin!). This is British political adventure satire at its driest and best.
Originally, published in 1972, Fergusson somehow presents us with the perfect book for our times (2014)! An entertaining example of the comic-adventure-espionage-world crisis genre that it seems to me the English do so well. Perhaps in this case it’s because the author is the second son from the ranks of the minor nobility, a former Conservative Party Euro-MP, journalist, and an author of both fiction and non-fiction works.
The story begins in the last days of the House of Hapsburg and is set in London and Carpathia – a statelet nestled in the Carpathian Mountains. Eventually this becomes a border region of Poland, Ukraine, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland in the heyday of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact. And that’s where the adventure really takes off with student revolutionaries, Hapsburg vintage diplomats and political figures, Soviet soldiers, and two modern day English adventurers. Not a side splitting yarn, it is rather a romp through the Cold War’s annals as all play their respective roles perfectly – sometimes in a perfectly ridiculous manner. It was a perfect read this summer against a backdrop of world events that seemed to echo almost every historical reference that Fergusson wove into his narrative (including a Zeppelin!). This is British political adventure satire at its driest and best.
August 30, 2014
This was enough of a hoot to make me get two of his other books.
June 9, 2012
Carpathia! I couldn't put this one down. It all starts with a little box and ends up a fascinating story about a long lost country called Carpathia. The final twist is poignant.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews