A Cafe on the Nile (edition 1999)

A Café on the Nile by Bartle Bull is a rollicking adventure story filled with colourful characters in the exotic settings of Cairo and Ethiopia. The second in his African Trilogy, we are reconnected to many familiar characters from the first book. The timing is now 1935 and Cairo a city that mixes people from many nationalities and political standpoints. Anton Rider has just arrived to pick up his newest clients for a safari and also to visit his sons and estranged wife, Gwen, who are living in Cairo while Gwen trains to be a doctor. The place to meet in Cairo is the Cataract Café, which is run by none other than Olivio Alevado, the extremely clever dwarf. Still incredibly loyal to his friends he has plans to make them all rich.

Broader in scope than The White Rhino Hotel, with it’s backdrop of war as the Italians invade Ethiopia, A Café on the Nile is much more action driven than the first book. Following several plotlines, the story twists and turns continuously. As the reader is drawn into the book, the action gears up and by the end of the book we are left breathless from these daring exploits.

Completely entertaining this rip-roaring yarn has romance, excitement, adventure and violence to spare. I thoroughly enjoyed my tine with this book and look forward to completing the trilogy. ( )

In this exciting follow-up to White Rhino Hotel, we return to Africa, just at the brink of World War II, with the Italian army advancing and getting ready to pounce, like a crazed jaguar. Anton Rider, the great hunter, is back, along with Olivio, the crafty and business-minded dwarf, who owns and operates the exotic “Café” of the title.
This is a rousing adventure, packed with action, history, sex and war, a nifty cross between “Casablanca” and “Indiana Jones”. The author has had a long time obsession with Africa and it shows in every vivid sentence. This is the 2nd book in a trilogy and I look forward to the next one. Highly recommended. ( )

Great adventure, great skullduggery, and great romance all rolled into one book. Heroic heroes and nasty villains abound. And don't forget the scenery and the great descriptions of the people and the wildlife of the Ethiopian Highlands. If exotic settings and thrilling action is your cup of tea, this is the book for you. All of this makes for an unbeatable combination. Reading this book is better than watching an Indiana Jones or James Bond movie. Best of all the great characters that the author created in White Rhino Hotel are back and better, and worse than ever. They are older and changed, as well as changing, and learning and growing as people and characters.

The time is 1935 and the setting is Cairo, Egypt and the Ethiopian Highlands. Olivio Alevado owns and operates the Cataract Cafe, a floating restaurant that is one of the watering holes of the expatriate community living in Cairo at the time. Olivio fights his battles of intrigue and skullduggery with nefarious villains who want to deny him access to lands and riches because he is who he is. At the same time Anton Rider is leading a safari of two rich American women (who naturally are beautiful and succumb to the charms of the dashing hunter) that has gotten caught in the crossfire between the Ethiopians and the Italians at the beginning of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. To complicate matters Rider's wife, Gwen, has left him to attend medical school in Cairo, where she then volunteers for the Red Cross that is sending teams to Ethiopia. Of course her path crosses that of her husband and the romance is renewed, much to the dismay of the safari sisters. The novel toggles back and forth between the two story lines - Olivio's and Rider's.. Probably the novel is overly romantic, sentimental, and filled with improbable action, but oh-my-god! what a ride. ( )

A gorgeous novel that combines the adventure of Indiana Jones and the corruptive darkness of Film Noir. This second book of Bull's trilogy covers several different, yet intertwined, stories of expatriates living in Cairo before the outbreak of World War. It gives a unique and largely unheard view into a time and space that has been largely ignored by modern mass media and is worth every peak. ( )