[.ca] A Cafe on the Nile (ISBN 0786706759)

From Amazon.com:
Where are the new Casablancas coming from? Here's one possible source. Bartle Bull, a lawyer, publisher, explorer, and writer, centers his latest thriller at the Cataract Cafe, a floating version of Rick's in 1935 Cairo. The owner, Olivio, is a dwarf from Goa, and his regular customers include a stalwart British professional hunter, his unfaithful wife and her lover, an Italian aviator, American twin sisters in search of all kinds of adventure, and various rogue Germans, including a doctor who regrets not being able to use Olivio for medical research. Bull's writing is wry and deceptively simple: The waiter set before the doctor a glass of warm boiled water and the flesh of a Nile perch, cleaned from the bone and rearranged on the plate in the shape of a smaller fish. The water was pink from the three spoonfuls of vinegar that had been stirred into it, the day's first weapon in his battle with arthritis. The German leaned forward. His high hooked nose hung over the table like a chimney over a fireplace as he widened his nostrils and smelled the fish. Outside the cafe, larger forces are at work: Mussolini is helping to start World War II with his attacks on Abyssinia, and other countries are jockeying for power. By focusing on the lives of a few assorted cafe goers, Bull makes his book add up to much more than a hill of beans--he gives us a rich, exciting picture of a world about to disappear. --Dick Adler

excellent reading!:
This is the first Bartle Bull I've read but won't be the last. Thoroughly enjoyable and difficult to put down. Very fast paced and it just keeps going and going. Sort of like Tom Clancy without the techno-babble and Robert Ludlum without the gory details. I got caught up in what was going to happen next to the characters, the color of Cairo, Ethiopia and colonial empires circa 1935 and the plot. Although the characters are many, they are well developed. I got a sense of knowing them well quickly without page after page of agonizing character building. I just became a fan of BB. On to the Devil's Oasis and Shanghai Station.

Sample the exotic treachery, intrigue, and love:
A beautiful cover led me initially to this book as the Sphinx glowed from the clouds amidst palms and distant mountains. The exotic beckoned as I iimagined what interesting pleasures might issue forth from a "cafe on the Nile." I was not disappointed!. A cast of fascinating characters led me into the labyrinths of intrigue, love, and war, not to mention the treachery and calculating energy that existed in Cairo in the early days of WWII. A brilliant and wealthy dwarf, a German soldier of fortune, an English gypsy safari leader and his medical student wife, an impoverished English Lord, and energetic twin sisters from Kentucky make up the main cast of characters, but there are numerous enduring indigenous characters that round out the multi-layered ethnic mixture of Egypt and Africa. This is a novel of intrugue, of close ties of friendship and of betrayal. It focuses on the Italian campaign in Africa where the Italians violated all rules of civilized warfare when they dropped poison gas on thousands of Abyssinian warriors and bombed Red Cross hospital tents. The ensuing torture and vengeance that traveled with their forces illustrates the horror of war and what it can do do one's humanity. Another element of this novel that distinguishes it from the usual historical novel is its focus on the pleasures offered in that part of the world that might be considered decadent in other cultures but that exists hand in hand with the austerity of Islam and the hypocrisy of Chrisianity. Sexual favors and delights are there for the enjoyig, given freely as gifts, as bribes, and as favors. Here the exotic manifests itself in an enchanting and throbbing rhythm that whets the appetite without being vulgar. In addition, the actual love affairs and intimate relations thrill without repulsing. All in all, this is a novel full of energy and excitement. History is there as well as adventure, intrigue and international affairs. Descriptions of the African bush are as beautiful and poetic as the animal and plant life that charm and enchant those on safari. To read Cafe on the Nile is to enter a world of fascinating intrigue and drama that dashes from start to finish, leaving the reader breathless and wishing for more.

A great epic story - but terrible use of German.:
This is story well worth reading. The writer seems to know his terrain very well and writes in an easy and fascinating style. However, the book loses one star due to its terrible use of German sentences. Nearly every single German sentence uttered by Ernst von Decken is spelled wrong and some sentences plainly have been translated word by word from a dictionary and make no sense. Since the author uses German sentences quite frequently, an effort should have been made to have these corrected by a German-English speaker.

A Detailed Journey of the Mind:
If nothing else Bartel Bull can be described as a master of description. It is not the type of description that evokes emotion but one that stimulates the senses. In Café on the Nile I could see the water of the Nile pouring into the farmlands and feel the coolness it brought to the parched land. I could smell the gun oil on the Colonels Barretta, feel the dust of the desert in my eyes and taste the fruits being eaten by the Doctor. But, all of this comes at a price. At times the minute descriptions take a lot of concentration and make the going slow. That being said, the book is a wonderful mind journey into a place and time few of us know existed. Bartel Bull has carefully crafted a work of fiction so full of facts that it can act as a textbook for Egypt and Ethiopia at the time of the Italian invasion. So careful is the author to get things right that he dedicates a page in the back of the book to explain the few places where he took "literary license." I recommend this book for any serious mind traveler, it is a first class ticket but be prepared to pay the price with your attention, it is not a light read.

A Cafe on the Nile:
I read an average of two books a week. This is the best book I have read this year. This book has a fast moving plot and delightful characters and a pace I haven't seen since I read the Hardy Boys mysteries as a child. Bull has chosen a location and time that is unfamiliar to most of us. The historical setting alone is worth the time. His turn of phrase comes close to the quality of Tom Robbins with a richness of lexicon that is like rich chocolate. The predecessor novel The White Rhino Hotel is also worth your time. I only wish Bull were more prolific.