DESERT QUEEN The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell, Adventurer, Advisor to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia

Narrator Jean Gilpin's aristocratic British accent captures the upper-class background of Gertrude Bell, whose connections with the Arab world during and after WWI made her one of the most powerful women in the British Empire. Bell's political influence on this part of the world is considered by many to be equal to T.E. Lawrence's military leadership. In an evenhanded performance, Gilpin gives the same weight to Bell's geopolitical accomplishments as she does to the details of her fashion sense and romantic affairs. The result of this evenhandedness is a narration without shadings--a performance not fully successful in reflecting the three-dimensional portrait of Bell created by the author. Only in Gilpin's delivery of extensive quotes from Bell's letters and diaries do we sense her important role in setting early-twentieth-century Mideast policies--policies that planted the seeds of turmoil we are faced with today. N.E.M. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine [Published: FEBRUARY 2013]