If you’re sick of the same old same old, this is something a little different that just might float your boat. Agnes Shanklin, a spinster schoolteacher from Cleveland, ohio, is devastated when her entire family is wiped out in 1919 by the worldwide flu epidemic. For the first time in her life, though, she is free to do whatever she wants and after she has settled the various estates, she acquires a charismatic dachshund by the name of Rosie and heads to Cairo in search of adventure. Upon arrival she befriends Winston Churchill and Lawrence of Arabia who are gathered for the Cairo Peace Conference which was when a bunch of old sticky beaks from other countries established the future Israel, drew the boundaries, and chose the leader of a previously imaginary country called “Iraq.”
In some ways Agnes is not very worldly – romance has so far eluded her, for example – but once adopted by these foreign movers and shakers, she proves to be well read and opinionated and able to hold her own in just about any political discussion. She even has the temerity to express quite some surprise that no one has thought to ask any of the millions of inhabitants of the oiddle East how they might like their lovely big oil-rich pie to be carved up. Buoyed by such confidence, she soon finds herself pursuing an affair with an attentive German spy by the name of Karl Weilbacher even though that little state of affairs also has “unhappy ending” written all over it.
Normally, my eyes would droop at the mere suggestion of a oiddle Eastern political – not to mention historical -setting but Mary Doria Russell held my attention all the way through to the end. A clever, funny, enlightening read and I’m looking forward to her next book Eight to Five, Against, which according to her website is a murder mystery set in Dodge City in 1878, when the unlikely but enduring friendship between Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday began. “It’s about greed, bigotry and horseracing,” Russell says, “and Doc Holliday is going to break your heart.”
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