John Biggins: 4 books

In this ironic, hilarious, and poignant story, Otto Prohaska is a submarine captain serving the almost-landlocked Austro-Hungarian Empire. He faces a host of unlikely circumstances, from petrol poisoning to exploding lavatories to trigger-happy Turks. All signs point to the total collapse of the bloated empire he serves, but Otto refuses to abandon the Habsburgs in their hour of need.

It is the summer of 1916 and, as luck would have it, Otto is assigned to the nascent, unreliable, and utterly frightening Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Flying Service. Ottto's aerial chauffeur is the self-willed Sergeant-Pilot Toth, with whom he can only communicate in broken Latin—although...

Laced with smart humor, this naval tale follows the early career of Lieutenant Otto Prohaska, a cadet in the Austro–Hungarian Navy at the turn of the century. Bad luck continues to shadow Otto, and when a fellow cadet breaks his leg, Otto must take his place on a scientific expedition bound for...

This book follows the hapless Lieutenant Otto Prohaska in the waning years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and finds Otto taking an ill-considered break from duties to engage in a mad fling with a Polish actress. After a desperate attempt to elude his lover's husband, he finds himself mistaken by anarchists...