Customer Reviews

Under an English Heaven

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Westlake is one of the funniest novelists alive, but he never made up anything crazier than this true story, the invasion of a small Caribbean island by 600 British paratroopers. The islanders' crime? Rebelling against independence and demanding to be controlled by Great Britain!

Anyone who has ever visited the island of Anguilla owes it to himself to read this hysterical true story of Anguilla's "rebellion" and the consequent "invasion" of this tiny island by British troops.

Westlake tells the story of how Anguilla rebelled against decolonisation. It's a story worthy of a good magazine article, but DEW drags it out to a full book's length. I bought this years back, a remaindered hardback, for about 50 cents. It wasn't worth it! I read it from beginning to end because I'd read a lot of DEW, and Richard Stark (same guy, different pen name), and even in the Stark books, Westlake's humour shines through. I just got bored with this one.

For example, Westlake keeps harking back to the fact the a Paratrooper fired a shot, and makes comments like "what if that bullet had hit a child?". What indeed? But it didn't hit anyone, and after a while, I began to wonder what all the ranting was about. Maybe Donald Westlake just didn't like the English? Whatever the reason, it's a shame he ever wrote this book, and spoiled an otherwise excellent series of work.

Two stars, because no Westlake is worth only one. But three hours reading this book is three hours of your life you'll never get back!