Customer Reviews

The Old Limey

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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?

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.

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!"

I was enticed by the comparisons of this book to P.G. Wodehouse, and though Wodehouse would probably not write about anything as unseemly as violent drug gangs, there are certainly Wodehousian moments in this very funny novel. Throwing a Victorian British General into California popular culture, with two beach babes as his guide, is a marvelous comic formula. Great characters and great writing make this a really enjoyable book.

The Old Limey is easily the first great comic novel of the 21st century! It's a high-speed comedy, American-style. Which means that from the moment Nigel Haversham, a gung-ho retired British general, lands in Los Angels to rescue his goddaughter, Alexandra, who has followed her drug-dealing boyfriend Sean there, it's all go-go-go!

Finding Alexandra is the least of Haversham's problems. First, he has to contend with the problems of Penelope and April, a couple of Valley girls, who get hooked up with him in the quest. Then, there are the problems of dealing with the California cops, the Black Muslims, a Jamaican drug gang, a Mexican drug cartel and - Penelope's dad!

But Haversham is a man with a plan for every contingency. In fact, at the heart of this hilarious novel are Haversham's bumbling plans. But, so full is he of optimism that we are swept away with him to the end. It's an end with not one - but two! - startling surprises!

Loaded with insights into the workings of old-fashioned British and new-fangled America societies, The Old Limey is a light-hearted romp that will be enjoyed by readers on both side of the Pond. Mr Crocker's writing style is such that you're not so much reading words off a page as experiencing a delightful musical comedy in your head!

This is a book that will not dull with the passage of time.

The _Old Limey_ runs in the tradition of _Confederacy of Dunces_, featuring an anti-anti-hero who dares to hold manly ideals and believe in higher principles in the midst of his hilarious observations on disintegrating Western Civilization.

What makes the book a delightful read is that the modern culture of drugs, booze, and raves that surround Nigel Haversham and eventually swallow his heroic search for his goddaughter in LA are described with wit and humor, making the reader laugh out loud at the absurd turns of life. The reader soon gains a genuine appreciation and fondness for the "stiff-upper lip" of the Brit and a real admiration for the author who can so effectively mix Jamaican drug dealers with British noblewomen, crusty tweed-clad generals with leggy California blondes, and black nationalists with red-neck special operatives for a surprise ending.

The advance hype of The Old Limey, by H.W. Crocker, III, billed the author as "a latter-day P.G. Wodehouse," which, as a devoted reader of Wodehouse and a participant in a Wodehouse usenet group, piqued my interest and had me stampeding for dibs on reviewing this book. But as I read the book, its style and tone reminded me less of Wodehouse than of Thomas Pynchon, legendary purveyor of hallucinogenic fiction filled with themes of global, geo-political conspiracy and Armageddon on the one hand and the minutia of the lives of its warped, twisted characters on the other hand. The Old Limey fits well into that genre of total lunacy mixed with a political message.

The story begins with Brigadier General Nigel Haversham's odyssey from the stuffy, dusty clubs of England to the barrios of Los Angeles to rescue and recover his goddaughter who has been kidnapped by her boyfriend's drug dealer cohorts. General Haversham (the eponymous Old Limey) has a rich fantasy life based upon embellished reminiscences of his years as an "old campaigner" in the various outposts of the British colonies. In certain respects, he does resemble a Wodehouse character in his slavish devotion to better times "when men were men," and the sun never set on the British Empire. Wodehouse himself preferred to place his stories in an unidentifiable era placed between the great World Wars, in which certain standards prevailed and nothing ever changed, even when he was writing for readers born generations later. General Haversham dwells mainly in the past and his actions are driven by old mores that seem curiously fresh and exotic to the thoroughly modern characters he encounters in Los Angeles -- his values and tactics are so old, they're new.

In his quest to rescue his goddaughter from her boyfriend's drug dealer associates, Los Lobos Colorados (or Los Locos Constipatos, as General Haversham refers to them), General Haversham enlists the help of a decidedly motley crew that includes two typical California ..., three Vietnam Veterans (code named Rebel Yell), a group of ... Jamaicans (code named Jamaican ...), and several menacing suit-and-horn-rimmed-glasses-wearing devotees of the Watts-based Islamic leader, the Esteemed Mr. Iced Kalifah (code named Black Jihad). His sales patter includes conning them into believing he is working on behalf of the British secret service. As he relives his glory days as a commander in Her Majesty's Armed Forces, General Haversham fantasizes about not only rescuing his goddaughter, but annexing the State of California for his country and turning it into an Islamic State in which he would be obliged, as its ruler, to take four wives, one of whom would be the Duchess of York, Fergie, as a favor to the Queen to take her off the royal family's hands and remove her from their hair. (General Haversham's gallantry knows no bounds.)

The surreal quality and downright silliness of author Crocker's narrative had me giggling at certain points towards the end of the story, particularly when General Haversham started comandeering his bizarre and disparate army of rescuers. Although the story moved slowly at the beginning, it picked up steam as General Haversham, disguised as a Don King look-alike in an effort to avoid a repeat of the mugging he had suffered the night before, prowls the bars and nightclubs in search of his goddaughter. The story's ending was a bit far-fetched and anticlimactic, but by then it didn't really seem to matter. If you have a taste for the outlandish and the downright farcical, you will enjoy this story. It also helps to be an Anglophile with some knowledge of the culture and customs, not to mention the history of the imperial reign of Great Britain.

Fans of George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman series will love the irresistible Nigel. Crocker has the gift of portraying a world in which retired British brigadier generals are hip. I can't wait for the movie!

I bought this book after reading an ecstatic review praising it as "an absolute gut-buster." Although there are a (very) few funny moments in the novel (mainly in the beginning), most of the story is pretty stale. The author tries to punch up the plot with various action sequences: someone pulling a gun on someone, scaling a building, etc. Unfortunately, these scenes don't work as action or comedy and just bog down the story. The author tries to create humor by featuring wacky groups of characters: a Jamaican drug gang, a Mexican drug gang, black muslims, redneck vets. Unfortunately, he doesn't do anything very interesting with them.

I really wanted to like this novel. But it is, as General Haversham might put it, "a crashing bore."

I will give this book the highest praise that one can give any novel: It's a great read. Thoroughly enjoyable and wonderfully written The Old Limey creates a modern day Don Quixote in Nigel Haversham. From the dangers of interacting with nimble but non-intellectual beach beauties to crossing paths with members of not one but two drug cartels The Old Limey is a non-stop roller coaster ride of action, humor and biting satire.