Fans of Michael Pearce and David Roberts take note, as here is a book that is likely to appeal to you. Like the former, Ms Baron revels in tangible descriptions of North Africa, and like the latter, she has a talent for getting under the skin of what life must have been like for an ordinary person in this period. She does not, I felt, have a great talent for telling a story (or creating characters that one can care about) and has an obscure, indirect manner that does not make for an exciting read. It was difficult to feel involved and was rather akin at times to looking down the wrong end of a telescope. But it certainly wasn’t easy to guess whodunit, which is always a good thing, and the plot kept me on my toes until the last page, possibly even after that. Like the first book, though, I was left with those wonderful descriptions of the time and the place, which kept the pages turning, plot and characters notwithstanding.