I’ve loved every page of this book, a review copy from Eland.

I have no special knowledge of the North-West Frontier, nor of the author, Peter Mayne, but I do enjoy travel – the kind of travel that takes you somewhere slowly. This book is full of that sort of travel, and I’ve been able to join in without setting foot outside the front door.

The journey itself is not an easy one. Peter Mayne is travelling around the North-West Frontier visiting old friends from the various tribes and embassies in the region, and exploring, or trying to explore, the question of Pashtunistan. It is a subject as elusive as the permits he needs, but even while waiting for them to be granted he drags us around with him, trailing us from heat to shade, from sweaty office to sweaty room, chatting with strangers, officials, and staff, and round and round with himself. Then suddenly he’s off, back to the mountains, and dining with soldiers.

The journey and the writing are paired perfectly. The first almost impossible, the other light as air as it lifts us from the fan-whirring heat of a place, to the languid shade of afternoon tea in the garden of a British diplomat, or on to the bouncing squash of bodies in a crowded bus. And its these bodies, these characters, and their words that catch the violence of life in their lands – the feuds, the friendships, the frustrations – the layers revealed with the narrowest of smiles.

It’s quite a journey.

Copyright Georgie Knaggs & The Phraser 2023