Dominic Verwey: SAMARITAN OF THE SAHARA (Dromedaris Stories from South Africa)

In the stockade of an outlaw band in the Sahara desert, Doctor Dominic Verwey is introduced to the Bedouin chief as 'Sahbena el-Hakim' - my friend, the doctor. But he would very shortly thereafter earn a second name: that of 'Hamid Pasha' - protector and leader of his people, 'refuge of the refugee and sanctuary of the oppressed'. His main purpose is to settle a score with the unprincipled Arab, Abdel Sharia, who incarcerates innocent men in his labour camps and enslaves beautiful women in his harem ... In the foreword to this book, readers who loved the people whose stories they followed in When you know that you know that you know! or The redemption of Benjamin Ashton, will readily recognize such characters as Ash (Benjamin Ashton) , and a few of his friends from the years he spent, in the 1970s, establishing the citrus farm, Beauclaire, near Nelspruit, South Africa. We catch up with Fallah (Father Peter Crawford, the priest) both Richard and Trudy Evans (the doctor, and his wife) as well as Stella and her biologist husband, Paul Verwey, as Antoinette Spencer Crawford takes up the cudgels on behalf of 'Uncle Dominic' (El-Hakim) , the notorious 'Samaritan of the Sahara' (whose grandson, Stephen, she wishes to marry.) Even those who meet the very convincingly real characters from the previous book, for the first time, will find this absorbing novel well worth reading. The unusual theme concerns the desert adventures, of a doctor, who, besides being skilled with the scalpel, is also a dashing figure of the Robin Hood type. Enthralling!