Confessions of a Knight Errant

Dr. Gary Watson had to do something to get out of going into the family business, so he became an environmentalist. He's devoted his career to the problem of polluted water in the Nile River. Somewhere along the way, he found himself accused of being a cyber terrorist and ended up on Interpol's most wanted list. What to do? He flees Egypt incognito with his best friend Kharalombos.
And now they're going back. Right at the height of the Arab Spring unrest.

Gary and Kharalombos have their respective reasons for wanting to go back to Egypt. Gary is seeking the only existing draft of his only novel. He left it in his apartment when he previously left Cairo. It should still be there, right? Kharalombos is desperate to meet Nunu, his son from an assignation with the daughter of the Egyptian ruler. But when they arrive in Egypt, nothing goes as planned, and they end up hightailing it out of Egypt (again) in the company of Gudrun, a German woman who runs a girls' camp in Schulenburg, Texas. They figure they can work there at camp and lay low for a while.

This is a zany, charming, insightful, and wildly entertaining ride! McCullough fills her tale with characters both tame and outrageous – from bratty campers and their well-to-do, equally high-maintenance moms, to the mysterious neighbor next door (just what are those boxes in his garage?), to an Irish couple working at camp who may or may not have ties with the IRA. And our hero faces one catastrophe after another. Some of them he brings on himself, as he can't seem to keep from exaggerating his skills and abilities. Some of them are just a case of being in the wrong place at the right time. All are hilarious. And a dead body brings a police investigation to the camp – the last thing someone on Interpol's most wanted list needs, and hardly in keeping with Gary's desire to lay low!

The story makes me think a bit of Lemony Snicket and A Series of Unfortunate Events. But where Unfortunate Events finally made me give up in exasperation because those poor children kept falling into one terrible circumstance after another and I just couldn't bear it anymore, I couldn't put down Confessions of a Knight Errant. McCullough writes with such wit and wry humor that I kept reading to see what shenanigans they'd get up to next (and how they'd get out of them!).

This book may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it was absolutely my shot of whiskey. Give it a read and see if it's for you, too. Five stars for sheer outrageous entertainment!