In another departure (Incident at Badamya, 1989, etc.) from the author's Mrs. Pollifax mystery series, an exotic background again takes a leading role—this time, a role shared by 16-year-old Caressa Horvath. The time is pre-WW I, and Caressa—a budding beauty, daughter of a struggling carnival family, expert juggler, and pickpocket—has been sent with hard-saved money to a private school in Boston, to satisfy the mother who's determined to make a lady of her. Ever impoverished, Caressa makes an ill-judged attempt at theft that introduces her to wealthy linguist-anthropologist Jacob Bowman. He marries her, and soon after they leave on an exploratory mission to Africa—first to Tripoli, then across the Sahara. The expedition, through hostile Tuareg country, ends in disaster; but it's only a beginning for Caressa, taken captive, who will spend the next harrowing years fighting to survive enemies and the desert; finding friends; finding love—only to discover betrayal on her return to civilization. As her chronicle unfolds from the vantage of great old age, the reader will experience a land and an era brought to teeming life; share Caressa's highs and lows; and exult with her when the last laugh is hers. Gilman's best—and a tribute to the artful power of simple, old-fashioned storytelling in the hands of a master.
