Jump: The Knights of Death Valley (Paperback or Softback)

The dystopian story takes place in the near future, mainly set among the stunning scenery of the beautiful Lauterbrunnen Valley in Switzerland with its vertical rock faces, numerous waterfalls, and frame of snow-capped mountains like the Eiger, Mönch, and Jungfrau.

Rampant inequality driven by state-controlled ministries of wealth has divided society into a small, decadent, wealthy elite and a large, deprived rabble struggling for everyday existence. Governmental surveillance is growing, and so is social unrest with an increasingly violent response from the authorities.

Roger Thiel, a young banker from Zurich’s highest financial echelons, is forced out of his affluent society life by his best friend Luca, himself a former finance high-flier. Luca has left the world of finance for good to live in the Lauterbrunnen Valley in the heart of the Swiss Alps, and he convinces Roger to join him.

Coming from a wealthy, influential family, Roger is initially skeptical about Luca’s radical, libertarian views. The more Roger stays in the Lauterbrunnen Valley, aka “Death Valley” because of the many fatal accidents by base jumpers, the more he questions the current state of things, his own views about the world order, his work, and his relationship with his dominant father. The independent ecosystem of the Lauterbrunnen Valley, called the Baser community, fascinates and shocks Roger in equal measure as it represents a rebellious countermodel to the authoritarian, control-based leadership in the rest of the world.

Torn between his decadent, bourgeois lifestyle and the rebellious, raw spirit in the Lauterbrunnen valley, Roger falls in love with a committed radical representative of the Baser community, who further tests his loyalty to the ruling establishment.

The mood in both the Lauterbrunnen Valley and the rest of the country becomes increasingly radicalized with rising tensions, and Roger must decide which side he is on.