A few weeks back I reviewed Tony Cliff’s masterpiece Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant and gave it a score that broke our review scale. It’s not something we do often, but when a book as amazing as Delilah comes around we acknowledge that. Unfortunately it wasn’t my turn at the “Top Rack” otherwise I would have sung to the heavens my praises for Delilah’s character. Well it’s my week so here come the praises. The thing that is great about Delilah’s character is that she’s not a character. In everything she does she comes across as a living breathing person. Even when she’s doing something that should be impossible or at the very least improvable, you’re never sucked out of the story because she makes it real. There’s a history to the character which you can thumb through in the gallery below, and that history is yet another reason why she’s such a rich character person. She has lived and in some cases, she has experienced more than the reader.

Her quirky personality and arrogance are just one of many things to love about her character. There is no challenge she isn’t willing to face and she’s never afraid of capture. In fact she gets captured a lot it seems, but she finds a way out.

Also she has/had a flying boat. What!? That’s awesome right? Tell me that’s not awesome… you can’t!

There really is something about the character of Delilah that gets under your skin, but in the best of ways. Probably my favorite line in the entire book is when she’s escaping and has just thrown a couple of men through a door and as she walks out takes the time to great Selim. If that doesn’t make you smile, then I don’t know what will.

I would encourage you to purchase the full book, but if you still need an idea of what to expect then you can read the first two chapters on DelilahDirk.com or check out my review.