But as a study of the larger-than-life figure who served as broker of the strange, complex and conflicted marriage between America and Arabia, Mr Ottaway's work is surely definitive.
She is, after all, on an important life mission: catching the eye of one of the hundreds of young Gypsy guys prowling around what locals have dubbed the "bridal market" to initiate a complex ritual of haggling that could lead to marriage.
Mr Mawer has fused pure story-telling with complex genetic theory to produce a fable that is accurate and readable a mature marriage of science and fiction in which scientists are no longer Frankensteins, Strangeloves or nerds.