This is a history lesson pertaining to pre-WWI and during WWI, and even a few bits about the start of WWII. The Desert Baron was Friedrich Kress von Kressenstein, who I will refer to as Kress in this review. Kress was a war hero as well as a very decent humanitarian when it came to planning, fighting, and concluding a battle. He was a rare tactical expert beyond most other leaders and became quite well known by other officers and government decision makers.

Climbing Mount Kenya sounded like a real challenge to Margaret and Patrick, especially when they had never climbed a mountain before. They had been in Kenya for several months, getting used to some of the customs, climate, and various groups of people living around them, and were enjoying most all of their experiences. A mountain climb sounded great.

As the author states, if you are looking for a serious war story, pass up on reading this book. If you want some humorous anecdotes and stories that never made the news, this is for you. Ralph Bittner became the "lawyer" for his various groups while in the service of our nation.

Hattie and John Bennett were missionaries in the United States during the 1880's and 1890's but they wished to become foreign missionaries so they started the long process to be approved, followed by plans for the long and extremely hard trip to Africa. In those years travel was crude with very little thought of passenger comfort unless one was very rich and had means to splurge. Hattie and John had no such budget.