I’ve been in the reading doldrums for almost all of this year, not being able to find anything that I absolutely have loved. This was just the sort of book I needed: not too much to think about and just enough to keep me entertained.

Primrose Nevendon has a father that she has never really knew. He is in Egypt working for an oil company whilst also running a local theatre for sentimental reasons. And then he disappears. Primrose decides to travel out to Egypt to find him although warned not to by her mother and her Granny. This leads to a set of adventures, criminals and people who help her, people who can’t be trusted and those that can but they all look the same. Helping her are Mike Taverner, from the British Council or so he says, and an American who sees to be a on the wrong side but turns out not to be.

The interesting thing about this book is the era it is set in, before the British leave Palestine, and the fact that some of the characters are not fictional, mostly those who were administrators of some sort. This means that the context for the story is one where Palestinians and Jews were taking revenge for atrocoties committed earlier alongside infighting on both sides. Nothing changes.

It is unfortunate that although Primrose is characterised as being brave setting out on her own and getting involved with people who are less than kind, there are still times when her chin quivers or she cries into her pillow. Neither Harry Taverner or Mike Luzzatto ever do this. They smile or keep a blank face whatever the danger and so this difference between the men and women I found a little irritating.

However, this is the first book I have finished in a few months and I enjoyed it.