I have changed a few dates and historical details to make the narrative work, but it was my intent that readers looking for fact not be led far astray. As often as possible, I let historical figures write their own dialogue. I would like to mention sources I found especially useful while writing the novel. Assignment: Churchill by Walter H. Thompson (New York: Farrar, Straus and Young, 1955) is a funny and informative behind-the-scenes book about Winston Churchill. The Cairo Conference section is short, but since Thompson had just begun work as Churchill’s bodyguard, his impressions of great men and affairs of state were fresh and bracingly irreverent. I also drew upon Thompson’s eyewitness accounts of the Gaza riot and events in Jerusalem. Winston Churchill’s enthusiasm for oil painting can be found in his 1921 essay “Painting as a Pastime,” which was republished in his book Thoughts and Adventures (London: Butterworth, 1932). I found Desert Queen by Janet Wallach (New York: Doubleday, 1996) an insightful biography of Gertrude Bell.
