Book Review: The Count of the Sahara

The Count of the Sahara. Wayne Turmel. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, September 12, 2015, Trade Paperback and Kindle, 370 pages.

Reviewed by TL Needham.

In the end, the author reveals in his acknowledgements that he wrote this story about Count Byron de Prorok because, “He was the perfect subject for my obsession with people who have all the tools for success and still manage to get in their own way.” Then the author adds, and I laughed to myself, that, “You get no points for guessing why that’s of interest.” Thus, the core theme of this remarkable and entertaining book is revealed.

We are taken back in time to the mid-1920s, a remarkable and colorful era, in alternate story lines of a dauntless and hapless expedition led by the Count across the scorching Sahara, and through his lectures given across the frozen Midwest to share his tale with the enthralled masses.

The author delivers a steady flow of laughs, pathos, and plot twists that keeps the reader turning pages. The reader gets a delightful and entertaining story, based on real people and events, that is destined to be a great success, just like the hapless Count himself (if only in his own mind). The author does succeed and delivers a great tale of adventure, with authentic and complex characters living in a series of unpredictable events.