The Grand Mirage


Fiction - Historical - Event/Era
304 Pages
Reviewed on 10/22/2011
Buy on Amazon

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Author Biography

Darrell Delamaide is a writer and editor in Washington, D.C. He has published three previous books, including the financial thriller Gold. As a journalist specializing in business and economics, he has reported from five continents.

A native of Pittsburg, Kan., Delamaide lived in Paris, France for 10 years and spent another decade in Europe in various cities in Germany. He is fluent in French and German and has traveled throughout Europe. He has also visited various countries of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as Ivory Coast, South Africa and Australia.

Delamaide has been on the staff of Dow Jones, International Herald Tribune, Institutional Investor, Bloomberg, and America Online. He has also written for Barron’s, Euromoney, MarketWatch and numerous other publications.

He currently writes a weekly column, “Darrell Delamaide’s Political Capital,” for MarketWatch, a Dow Jones online publication, and is engaged in a number of other writing and editing projects.

Delamaide received his bachelor’s degree from Saint Louis University and a master’s degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. He was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Munich, Germany.

His earlier novel, Gold, was published by Dutton in 1989. Dutton also published his 1994 nonfiction book, The New Superregions of Europe. An earlier nonfiction work, Debt Shock: The Full Story of the World Credit Crisis, was published by Doubleday in 1984.

    Book Review

Reviewed by Joy Hannabass for Readers' Favorite

In 1910, before World War I, the Germans plans were to build a railway connecting Berlin to the Persian Gulf. But the British wanted to block those plans, so they send out army officer Lord Leighton to spy on the progress of the Baghdad Railway and do everything he could to stop the progress and plans altogether.

Leighton had a most adventurous journey as he forges ahead on his mission to Baghdad. Along the way he encounters many life-threatening attacks only to have an unknown group freeing him from those who capture him. On his way he also meets and has an affair with Elena, wife of a Turkish pasha, thus creating more danger to himself because of Elena’s conniving husband. Will Leighton survive until the end of his mission? And who is sending this unknown group to follow Leighton, freeing him from his attackers?

“The Grand Mirage” was not a disappointment at all. Not having a lot of knowledge about the Baghdad Railway, this book brought the subject to life for me, very well educating me with the detailed history explained so vividly by the author. The characters were unique to the story itself and so believable I felt as though I was living the story with them. Leighton’s captivating journey as a spy is dangerous, exciting, thrilling, horrific, and sometimes enjoyable and will keep you turning those pages until the very end. This book is full of adventure and I won’t give more details because it will spoil the read for you.

If you like WW I, historical fiction and spy stories, you will enjoy this book. So go grab a copy and enjoy reading this great thriller, and learn a little bit of history while you are reading!