Empire of Sand

When I was a boy I was given a book of real life adventure stories, a popular present for young boys at the time. On the front cover was a picture of a handsome man dressed in white robes. He was riding a camel and, revolver in hand, was leading a charge against some rather nondescript infantry. None of the other illustrations in the book came close to matching the thrilling romanticism of that wonderful image and from that moment Lawrence of Arabia became my hero. Since that time I have read many books and articles about Lawrence, a far more complex character that any writer would dare to invent. In his excellent novel Empire of Sand Robert Ryan comes closer to revealing the different aspects of a man at once scholar, dreamer and man of action than most writers have achieved. As the novel opens Lawrence is confined to the map room at Intelligence HQ in Cairo, his superiors wary of his eccentricities although impressed by his understanding of the Arabs and their land. In 1915 an undercover war is raging across the Arabian lands of the tottering Ottoman Empire with agents of the British and the Germans seeking to use the desert tribes as guerrila forces. The most successful German agent is Wilhelm Wassmuss, known by the Arabs as Woss Moss, who has secured an alliance with the Tangistani bedu by supplying them with modern German rifles and other war material. His success has come to the notice of the War Office in London and they despatch Captain Harold Quinn, a man versed in the arts of undercover warfare, to kill him. Quinn and Lawrence assemble a small group to cross the Persian desert and attack Wassmuss at the fort of his Tangistani allies and locks these two outstanding agents in a thrilling battle of bullets and wits. Whilst based on real characters and incidents Ryan's story is entirely fictional but he uses this to illuminate the facets of an amazing character who, for four years, blazed across the Middle East like a comet. If Lawrences life ended in tragedy this was as much due to the betrayals of his political masters as to his inner turmoil. Robert Ryan has written a first class novel that is both entertaining and informative.