Around The World In 40 Days (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798257892509)

London, 1915.

A private invitation. Eight strangers. One absurd proposition:

Circle the globe in forty days and claim a fortune.

It begins as a spectacle. Newspapers bite, investors circle, and the competitors scatter across a world already tearing itself apart. Steamships, railways, early aircraft, improvised routes through ports that don't welcome questions.

Some run the race.

Some study it.

Some were placed there for reasons that have nothing to do with winning.

Progress is uneven. Plans collapse. Identities shift. The rules, such as they are, prove negotiable. Every leg of the journey reveals a little more of the machinery behind it.

And the uncomfortable truth settles in:

This isn't a test of speed.

It's a test of people.

Across war zones and trade routes, through ingenuity, luck, and the occasional moment of complete absurdity, the race becomes something else entirely-something designed, observed, and quietly controlled.

Not everyone is meant to finish.