The Sarajevo Hostage Crisis

In late June 2014, at the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the assassination of the heir to the Habsburg throne, Solomon Birnbaum, a secular Jewish Senator from Vienna, delivers a keynote address near the site of the crime, in Sarajevo. In it he assails the continuing political deadlock in Bosnia and Herzegovina and poses the question what the world has really learned since the start of World War I. Soon after, Birnbaum gets kidnapped. Other kidnappings follow and journalist Alois Hofer and his Bosnian and US colleagues Emir and Stanley, have to report a rapid succession of political events that, once again, increase tensions and endanger the shaky peace on the Balkans. This book is pure political fiction, but it is set against a background of present-day world affairs which gives the story a ring of realism. As the story develops, the reader learns much about the tragic history of Bosnia and Herzegovina and becomes exposed to the land- and cityscapes and the culture of that beautiful country. But the storyline also raises broader questions about peace and security and what to do to maintain them. .