The Year Before the War

On the precipice of the monumental events leading up to WWI, a young, Latvian man named Peter - but who claims to be called Hans - travels around Europe with little apparent purpose. Beginning as a doorman in Riga, he is unexpectedly embroiled in a series of bizarre events that place him at the dead-centre of political warfare of a number of emerging and defiant forces. During his journeys, he is romanced by legendary spy Mata Hari and analysed by Sigmund Freud. Meanwhile, more notorious figures of the early twentieth-century send his journey towards more violent revolutions, conducting Peter to commit a series of life-changing acts that alter the course of history.