Mystery at Geneva: An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings

Henry Beechtree, journalist for the radical British Bolshevist, expected nothing from the League of Nations assembly in Geneva but copy for his revolutionary newspaper. The delegates arrive in their furs and motorcars; Henry boards a grim boarding house. Then the newly elected President of the Assembly a Norwegian delegate vanishes into thin air, and suddenly this sleepy international gathering becomes the most interesting story in Europe. Rose Macaulay transforms the corridors of diplomatic power into a stage for comedy and intrigue, where earnest speeches mask petty rivalries and the machinery of world peace runs on nothing more substantial than goodwill and habit. Part satirical portrait of post-WWI idealism, part gentle mystery, this improbable tale asks whether anything meaningful happens in the grand halls where nations pretend to negotiate humanity's future or whether it's all simply performance. For readers who love their wit dry and their politics examined with a gimlet eye.