The Henrik Bertelsen Saga

For readers of Robert Harris, John le Carré, Frederick Forsyth, Eric Ambler, and Graham Greene, Tumult in Mecca is a wry, historically grounded geopolitical business thriller about ambition, family, and cultural collision.

July 1979. Denmark is quiet, Parliament is on holiday, and young civil servant Henrik Bertelsen is building a carefully planned life with his English wife, Sammy: a new co-housing home, an adoption from Indonesia, and a secure career at the Ministry of Labour. Then his brother Jakob calls.

The Saudi Arabian embassy has approached Jakob’s restaurant about a hospital-kitchen project in Taif, near Mecca. Jakob knows nothing about hospital kitchens. Henrik knows nothing about Saudi Arabia. But Jakob sees an opportunity, and Henrik speaks English.

Within days, Henrik enters a world of incomplete tenders, hidden agendas, petrodollars, religious restrictions, and men whose motives are hard to read. Danish assumptions about trust, work, and fair play offer little guidance.

What promises to be an exotic business trip soon spirals out of control. The rewards are tempting: money, adventure, status, and an escape from the predictable corridors of government. But every opportunity draws Henrik further from the orderly life he and Sammy have planned.

When the project takes him to Mecca, he crosses a boundary forbidden to non-Muslims. Then, on 20 November 1979, armed extremists seize the Grand Mosque. The Saudi regime closes ranks, rumours spread, and three ordinary Danes find themselves trapped where they do not belong.

One wrong move could cost them everything.

Sharp, funny, and suspenseful, Tumult in Mecca weaves business intrigue and human relationships into a story of ordinary people caught in extraordinary events.