The king's shadow : obsession, betrayal, and the deadly quest for the Lost City of Alexandria

Richardson, Edmund 1982- (author.).

Summary: "Impeccably researched, and written like a thriller, Edmund Richardson's The King's Shadow is the extraordinary untold and wild journey of Charles Masson - think Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid meets Indiana Jones - and his search for the Lost City of Alexandria in the "Wild East" during the age of empires, kings, and spies. For centuries the city of Alexandria Beneath the Mountains was a meeting point of East and West. Then it vanished. In 1833 it was discovered in Afghanistan by the unlikeliest person imaginable: Charles Masson, deserter, pilgrim, doctor, archaeologist, spy, one of the most respected scholars in Asia, and the greatest of nineteenth-century travelers. On the way into one of history's most extraordinary stories, he would take tea with kings, travel with holy men and become the master of a hundred disguises; he would see things no westerner had glimpsed before and few have glimpsed since. He would spy for the East India Company and be suspected of spying for Russia at the same time, for this was the era of the Great Game, when imperial powers confronted each other in these staggeringly beautiful lands. Masson discovered tens of thousands of pieces of Afghan history, including the 2,000-year-old Bimaran golden casket, which has upon it the earliest known face of the Buddha. He would be offered his own kingdom; he would change the world, and the world would destroy him. This is a wild journey through nineteenth-century India and Afghanistan, with impeccably researched storytelling that shows us a world of espionage and dreamers, ne'er-do-wells and opportunists, extreme violence both personal and military, and boundless hope. At the edge of empire, amid the deserts and the mountains, it is the story of an obsession passed down the centuries"-- Provided by publisher.

Record details

ISBN: 9781250278593
Physical Description: 328 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations, map ; 25 cm
regular print
print
Edition: First U.S. edition.
Publisher: New York : St. Martin's Press, 2022.
Copyright: ©2021

Content descriptions

General Note:	"Originally published in Great Britain under the title Alexandria by Bloomsbury Publishing."
Bibliography, etc. Note:	Includes bibliographical references and index.
Formatted Contents Note:	The runaway -- The illusionists -- The storyteller -- The wild east -- The city beneath the mountains -- The golden casket -- Pothos -- Our man in Kabul -- Stranger than fiction -- The age of everything -- The second Alexander -- Last resort -- No return -- Worlds to conquer -- The chamber of blood -- The prisoner -- The spy -- Entrails -- Frontiers -- The man who would be king -- The lamp-lighter.