Anton Rider

The Great War has ended, tragically for many; but for some more fortunate, East Africa holds the prospect of vast estates, fabulous wealth, and limitless opportunity in this powerful, grandly crafted novel of the natural and human perils that await pioneers in a promised land. It is in colonial Kenya, at Lord Penfold's White Rhino Hotel, that the paths of these new settlers cross. Here they meet the cunning dwarf Olivio Alevado, a man whose lustful desires and vengeful schemes make him a formidable adversary to his enemies and a subtle ally to his friends. Here the destinies of the gypsy adventurer Anton Rider and the courageous, war-hardened Gwenn Llewelyn intersect. Here hope is corrupted by greed, love by revenge, and loyalty by betrayal as the future is trampled into history.

This stirring sequel to The White Rhino is a historical novel of bold romance and grand adventure that sweeps from cosmopolitan Cairo to the wild highlands of East Africa. A nation sits at the brink of war; a city is fraught with conspiracy. It's 1935 in East Africa, and at the Cataract Café in Cairo, they gather: professional hunter Anton Rider; his estranged wife and her Italian lover; the pampered American twins, Bernadette and Harriet Mills; an English lord down on his luck; a German freebooter who has stolen a fortune in silver from the Italian army. Under the knowing eye of Goan the dwarf and café proprietor Olivio Alevado, they lay plots and toast alliances. They plan safaris. They gamble with destiny.

It is 1942, and civilization as the world knows it teeters on its edge. Nazi Germany stands at the height of its power. Anton Rider is now a desert commando engaged in obliterating Nazi air bases and petrol dumps. His old friend, Ernst von Decken, a German soldier of fortune, has become the enemy. Meanwhile, in North Africa, the brilliant General Rommel's panzers threaten the Suez Canal, the oil fields to the Middle East, and the trade route to Asia. Alliances shift, loyalties deceive, espionage thrives, and danger lies as much in the dark corners of Cairo as it does in the desert night. And at a barge on the Nile, at the Cataract Café, under the watchful eye of Olivio Alaved, its proprietor, Egypt frames its destiny.

Written with what the New York Times has called, "Mr. Bull's spirited, sensuous, hotblooded evocation of a rich and eventful historical world," Bartle Bull's “We'll Meet Again” is a powerful romantic novel set in Egypt and Jugoslavia during World War II. It is 1942, and the American and British armies are landing in North Africa to fight the German army led by General Erwin Rommel. Underground resistance to German occupation is rising across Europe. In Jugoslavia, Communist and royalist resistance movements are fighting both the Germans and each other. American and British agents are parachuting into Jugoslavia from Egypt to assist them. Anton Rider, the safari hunter featured in Bull's celebrated novels “The White Rhino Hotel”, “A Café on the Nile”, and “The Devil's Oasis”, is dispatched to Jugoslavia to kill a brutal fascist commander and attack a Nazi concentration camp where Gypsies and others are being murdered. Raised as a boy by Gypsies in England, Anton is injured while parachuting into the mountains of Jugoslavia with an American agent who becomes his mortal enemy. Meanwhile, Rider's son is wounded fighting Rommel's forces in North Africa, and Anton's beloved wife, Gwenn, from whom he is separated, is having an affair in Cairo with a treacherous English officer. There the mysterious dwarf Olivio Alavedo is at the center of intrigue and fights to protect his absent friend, Anton Rider. After romantic and military adventures in Jugoslavia, Anton returns to Egypt, where he confronts his enemies and seeks to recover the lady he loves.