The Assassins

by Alan Bardos Book 1 in the Johnny Swift Thrillers series.

First published 2021

Amazon

3.8(130)

In 1914 British diplomatic clerk Johnny Swift is sent into Bosnia to infiltrate the Young Bosnian conspirators preparing an attack on Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Swift’s debts, affair with Lady Elizabeth Smyth and instinct for self-preservation make him an unreliable operative, but his access to the group places him close to Gavrilo Princip, Nedeljko Čabrinović and the other men whose plans converge on the Archduke’s visit to Sarajevo with his wife Sophie.

Swift’s fictional mission unfolds through the real mistakes, missed chances and improvisations that culminated in the assassination on 28 June 1914. The killing did not by itself make a European war inevitable, but it triggered the diplomatic confrontation later called the July Crisis. Bardos uses the conspirators and royal visit to turn the familiar outline of Sarajevo into an espionage thriller about political violence, imperial tension and the inability of individuals to control the consequences of their actions.