The Old Limey [Paperback]

H. W. Crocker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2002

What happens when a reactionary, retired British brigadier general comes to Los Angeles looking for his missing goddaughter? Comic chaos, that's what, with California beach babes, Jamaican drug gangs, and other colorful characters feuding, fighting, but not quite fornicating, in a mad search and rescue operation.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

British humor meets American flair in a wacky comedy involving a retired British general, a kidnapped young lady, two California beach beauties and a Jamaican drug gang. After spending his life in Her Majesty's Army, at the age of 60 Nigel Haversham is just beginning to think of settling down with a glass of fine sherry and a woman at his side. Unfortunately for him, his goddaughter Alexandra has run off to California with her drug-dealing boyfriend, Sean Stalker, and her mother calls upon Nigel to find and return her safely to England. Approaching the disappearance like a military maneuver, Nigel heads for L.A., enlisting the aid of April and Penelope, two beautiful, ex-cheerleading Gen-Xers whom he literally falls over at an outdoor restaurant. Nigel plans to smoke out Stalker, torture him for information and quietly arrange to take Alexandra back home. But Stalker is also being hunted by Jamaican thugs, whose money he stole, Alexandra is kidnapped by a Mexican drug gang (intent on forcing Stalker to purchase their drugs) and one of Nigel's American beauties runs off with Stalker, leaving Nigel with no weapons, no leads and no Alexandra. The eccentric Nigel is a hoot, as is the book's riotous surprise ending. Armed with blurbs by Christopher Buckley and The French Connection's Robin Moore, this comedy from the author of the business bestseller Robert E. Lee on Leadership should sell particularly well to Anglophiles and connoisseurs of tart humor. (Jan. 15)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Charm fairly drips off this amusing first novel about a retired British military officer who comes to the shores of the U.S and faces and ultimately overcomes the cultural differences between his country and ours. Nigel Haversham journeys from overcast and chilly London to the sunny skies and palm trees of L.A. for the express purpose of locating his goddaughter, a young woman only in her twenties who has disappeared for scary reasons. As we find out, her boyfriend is in trouble with a drug-dealing group back in England, and it could be that Nigel's goddaughter followed the young man to California either to be with him or because she realized that staying in England could spell trouble for her, too. Nigel enlists the aid of two young women he just happens to meet upon arriving in California, and together they manage to leap over, scurry around, and out-and-out dodge all the obstacles placed in their path by the drug gang and reconcile Nigel with his beloved goddaughter. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 340 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Publishing (February 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0895261626
• ISBN-13: 978-0895261625
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,192,589 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hysterical character conflict, February 19, 2001

By 

David M. Scott "David Meerman Scott" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Old Limey (Hardcover)

Hysterical character conflict in this terrific book is set up from the first pages. Our befuddled Englishman meets a couple of beach bunnies and we're off for a wild romp with impossibly funny situations coming at a quick clip. Crocker knows his California babes well and his English Gentlemen better - pace, language and action are nearly flawless. Too often inter-cultural conflict hams up or misses the mark on one or the other sides. It would be great to see an opposite side of the pond version from Crocker. How about a Walter Matthau-type traveling to London and mingling for a few weeks with a couple of Sloan Rangers?

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Witty Comedy, September 24, 2003

By 

Jeffrey Leach (Omaha, NE USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Old Limey (Hardcover)

Retired British General Nigel Haversham just cannot seem to rid his life of problems. First, his precious goddaughter Alexandra ran off to America in pursuit of her shiftless boyfriend Sean, one of those sensitive, left leaning artists a rigid old guard conservative like Haversham despises with the heat of a million suns. When Alexandra's mother asks Nigel to go to America and track down her daughter, he readily agrees. Almost as soon as Haversham steps off the plane in California, the problems wash over him in an unending wave: he crashes his rental car after imbibing too much liquor, bringing in the unwanted attentions of the local constabulary. Since Nigel is English and promises to go home soon, the policeman lets him off with a warning. Quickly following this unpleasant escapade, the old general has a chance encounter with two beautiful California girls named Penelope and April who grudgingly agree to assist Nigel in his mission to find Alexandra. The adventures that follow twist and turn at a frenetic pace: Nigel meets up with a gang of Jamaican drug dealers, battles a gang of Latino drug dealers, disguises himself as "Bongo Topaz," a Don King look alike in order to infiltrate a nightclub, rescues one of his girls from a kidnapping attempt, and drinks enough alcohol to float the QE2 up the river Thames. Nigel Haversham, a man who helped plot strategy with Norman Schwarzkopf during the Persian Gulf War, never imagined rescuing his goddaughter would be so difficult.

This crude summary of H.W. Crocker's "The Old Limey" barely scratches the surface of this amusing and oftentimes whimsical story. All of the action centers on Nigel, of course, a man who suffers from frequent delusions of grandeur coupled with a roving eye for beautiful young women. Haversham's knowledge about America seems to come from movies or crime noir novels, as he often finds himself in dangerous situations simply because he doesn't understand how things work over here. Relying on his training as a military officer in the best English tradition, Haversham thinks nothing of blithely going up against dangerous drug gangs or marching into the headquarters of a group of Black Muslims in order to enlist their aid in his rescue mission. At one point, the old general considers the plausibility of conquering California and turning it into an Islamic protectorate of England. If some of the descriptions of this retired military officer slightly resemble Don Quixote, that's because there is, to some extent, a similarity between the two. Both characters embrace chivalrous values from the past in order to deal with modern problems. While Nigel isn't rushing off to charge any windmills, he does view things in a decidedly Victorian fashion. He doesn't understand the customs or the attitudes of these strange American creatures, but always figures another glass of gin or rum will solve any potential problems. Nigel is truly a man out of time.

"The Old Limey" takes place in a Los Angeles full of nightclubs, criminals, and beautiful women. Penelope and April, Nigel's reluctant helpers, are your typical California airheads. Both girls want to run their own image consulting business that will cater to the rich and famous, and Nigel makes copious use of their skills to track down Sean and Alexandra. He even enlists of the girls' fathers to form a coalition to fight the drug dealers. At one point, this coalition consists of a contingent of Black Muslims loaned to Nigel by the Esteemed Muslim leader Iced Khalifa, Jamaican drug dealers who want Sean to answer questions about some missing money, and a coterie of Vietnam veterans who wish to rescue Penelope from the clutches of the Latino drug gang. Nigel artfully plays these disparate groups off one another in a delightfully imperialist manner. No wonder the British possessed such a huge empire for so long; they could rely on people like Nigel to hold the whole thing together.

I am not quite sure who is the intended target audience for this story. If you like "fish out of water stories," you will probably appreciate Haversham's adventures in California. It is nice to read a story about how America looks through the eyes of a foreigner, so "The Old Limey" delivers on that level, too. Overall, while I rarely laughed out loud as I read this story, I did find it an amusing and satisfying read. I would love to see someone make a film version of this story, perhaps starring Sean Connery or some other similar bloke in the lead role. I can easily picture Connery turning in a great performance if such a film ever saw the light of day.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Endless fun!, March 2, 2001

By 

K. Baldwin "WOTDO" (Lovettsville VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Old Limey (Hardcover)

I can't recall ever reading anything that kept me laughing out loud from start to finish like "The Old Limey" did. Through our Hero Nigel Haversham, Crocker pokes fun at political correctness with light-hearted jabs. The action and dialogue are fast-paced with Nigel's private thoughts hysterical, to say the least.

In a world full of authors trying to insert deeper meanings into their stories, this one screams "Have some fun!"