By Mary Doria Russell
(Reviewed by Nancy Jelinek)

Agnes Shanklin will tell you, “My little story has become your history. You won’t really understand your times until you understand mine.” Born in the late 1800s, Agnes saw dramatic changes in the early years of the 20th century. In 1913, anything seemed possible until the Great War, when up to 60,000 men were lost in a day, and an influenza epidemic that killed millions, including all of the people most important to her, turned the world upside down. She became ill, but survived, only to take on the business of settling the estates of all her loved ones. With an unexpected inheritance, Agnes makes plans to see the Egypt, Palestine, and Jerusalem her sister Lillie had loved.

She arrives in Cairo at an interesting time in history. In 1921, the Cairo Peace Conference is convening at the hotel where Agnes has reservations, but the presence of her dog causes problems. Mistaken for her sister, Agnes receives assistance from conference attendee T.E. Lawrence. He had become close friends of Lillie and her husband when they served as missionaries in Jebail, north of Beirut, until the war forced their return to the States.

Through Lawrence, Agnes meets others attending the high-level meetings: Gertrude Bell, Winston Churchill as Britain’s secretary of state for air and for the colonies, and a host of other historical figures, all there to take advantage of the post-war situation.

An American with a unique perspective, Agnes is invited to elegant dinners, a painting outing with Churchill that nearly ends in a riot, and a group camel ride to see the Pyramids. Woven in and out of her adventures with the British crowd are guided tours of Cairo and a steamship cruise on the Nile with a secretive German gentleman who has an interest in the political decisions being made at the Conference. As Middle East boundaries and power structures are altered, so is the life of Agnes Shanklin.
 
Mary Doria Russell is the author of The Sparrow, Children of God, and A Thread of Grace.