Literature of interest

When I visited the Kodiak public library (lovely place), I picked up a used copy of The Devil's Oasis by Bartle Bull.

It's a WWII adventure novel, a sequel to two previous novels about the protagonist Anton Rider and his friends. Set in Cairo, Alexandria and the Western Desert, it starts at the beginning of the war, and culminates at the Battle of Bir Hacheim. Viewpoint characters include:

• Anton Rider, a safari leader who joins the Long Range Desert Patrol
• Wellington, his young son who joins the 11th Hussars
• Gwenn, his estranged wife, a doctor
• Giscard de Neuville, a French archaeologist and reluctant spy in a relationship with Gwenn
• Olivio Alavedo, a Portuguese dwarf and hotelier of many talents, friend of the Riders and rival of Giscard
• Ernst von Decker, a veteran of the Lettow-Vorbeck campaign and old friend of Rider, whose American wife Harriet is in a relationship with Rider

A few real-life characters also brush shoulders with the heroes; Rommel, of course, and two others who get their names slightly changed, Ralph Bagnold and Richard O'Connor. Rommel, I suppose, is too famous to bother.

There is intrigue in wartime Egypt as Giscard spies and both he and Alavedo spar over antiquities; combat as von Decker, Anton andSoWellington find themselves on opposite sides of the reconnaissance war; angst as Gwenn works in hospital and worries about her menfolk and Alavedo worries about his family; and lots of sex.

The best description of the feel of this is USA Today's "a cupful of Casablanca, a dollop of Isak Dinesen, a pinch of Indiana Jones and a touch of Tender is the Night," for a previous volume.

It's relatively short and a bit superficial; the plot is pedestrian, but it does capture that wartime and desert atmosphere and has some seeds for both military and gangster-type scenarios (Giscard and Alavedo fight over a tomb both are looting and hiding from the authorities).

The other two books, which I haven't yet read, are The White Rhino Hotel (set in Kenya immediately after WWI) and Cafe on the Nile (set during the Italian invasion of Ethiopia). He's also written two other novels, Shanghai Station and China Star, about a White Russian emigre in the Chinese Warlord period. Should be some useful inspiration for late colonial skirmishes!