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Murder in The Hindu Kush: George Hayward and the G
The British explorer George Hayward was one of the most mysterious and intriguing of all the travellers, spies, soldiers and charlatans who played the Great Game, the cold war fought amongst the deserts and mountains in the wild space between the advancing frontiers of the British Raj and the Russian Empire in the nineteenth century. In this new biography, Murder in the Hindu Kush, by journalist and travel writer Tim Hannigan, Haywards strange story is told in full for the first time. On a bright July morning in 1870 the British explorer George Hayward was brutally murdered high in the Hindu Kush. Who was he, what had brought him to this wild spot, and why was he killed? Told in full for the first time, this is the gripping tale of Haywards journey from a Yorkshire childhood to a place at the forefront of the Great Game between the British Raj and the Russian Empire, and of how, driven by an insane desire, he crossed the Western Himalayas, tangled with despotic chieftains and ended up on the wrong side of both the Raj and the mighty Maharaja of Kashmir. It is also the tale of the conspiracies and controversies that surrounded his death, while the authors own travels in Haywards footsteps bring the story up to date, and reveal how the echoes of the Great Game still reverberate across Central Asia in the twentyfirst century.