This book is historical fiction dressed up as a real history. It is about a person known as simply L. His real name is Louis Zander. He was born in South Africa – of Jewish heritage. A fact he kept hidden as his plans unfolded throughout his history in England where he spent most of his time. He was the son of rich parents who looked after this sensitive and brilliant child who later turned into a monster. This is the most absolutely frightening book I've ever read, even though it is written as a history of a political figure. The power that he had and the ways he abused that power effected an entire country so much so it turned England on it's head to become a Dictatorship. That one man could do that in such a short span of time is not only a cautionary tale, it is a horror story that should be taught to our children along with Grimm's fairy tales which teach them lessons about talking to strangers and being nice to people in situations which warrant it, because you never know what will happen in the future. This book was written from the perspective of an author quoting from a history that was written in the year 2023, looking back on the destruction caused by L and his cohorts, but really by L himself. With the socialist tendencies of Obama, this is a lesson that we all should learn and learn quickly. It could be part of our future, and that will not end well at all. To quote the marketing text; This “...could be a fictionalization of the Cloward-Piven strategy or Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. [sic] It “...unveils the step-by-step process by which one evil man seduces, perverts and then destroys an entire nation. “L” could be Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, or even the next Prime Minister or President.”

THE PLOT: This is the history of L through childhood, up through the time he died and shortly after. It describes him as a child and the relationships he had or didn't have, and how he was as he grew up. Once grown, he had a fondness for a type of art that included violence, self-mutilation, sadomasochism, scatology and other things in that vein. He became a philosopher and he had a philosophy about this type of art that he wrote books about. He got many degrees from famed institutions with his brilliance. After his writing, he decided that actions speaks louder than words, so he decided that politics would be the testing ground for his philosophies. He was so brilliant that he started slowly, and built the foundations as if building a town. Playing off the liberalism and the guilt that goes with it for those less fortunate than the middle and upper classes – the poor, the homeless, women, the racially unequal, immigrants, and everything and everyone else that is someone else's cause, and someone else's hot button, he played people like the fiddles they were. He used them to get what he wanted. What he wanted was Revolution! Now the story really gets rolling: There are sanctioned race riots, police deaths, housing proscriptions, denture recalls, property confiscations, police brutality, prison-like hospitals, private armies, brutal murders, hunting and killing the 'wrong kind” of people, starving, black market thriving, skinheads on the loose, guns turned in, businesses abandoned, people fleeing, cannibalism, people feeling like they somehow deserved it. There is so much more to this. I give the plot a 9/10

THE CHARACTERIZATION: There are very few people characterized in this book. L is obviously the most characterized, and yet he is an enigma wrapped in a conundrum, covered in a puzzle, with a few pieces missing. His brilliance is clear. He did the right things at the right time to grab the ultimate power over England, yet it didn't seem to be what he really wanted. It didn't make him happy. I don't know if anything could make him happy – except to die. Death to him was the ultimate thing to do. Whether it was with a lover, in an art piece, or execution as a traitor, it didn't seem to matter. It let him transcend this Earthly existence and get to another plane where he seemed to believe he had a chance at happiness – at least that is what it seemed like. He had tried suicide before, but his partner didn't agree, so he abandoned it. He decided that he had a lot to do, before his death, which is when he turned words into actions. Very strange, but very brilliant. What is interesting is that with all his appreciation of this sadomasochism – he never tried it. Never participated. Same thing with politics, never participated – just watched. Like watching gold fish in a bowl. The ultimate scientist, always watching, but never touching. Jotting down notes about what was going on, but never getting in there and playing around with his concepts. He was above it all. He was God to the ants. For characterization I give this an 7/10, there were so many other people that were wooden, many who should have been much better characterized, Foxe for example. Some had thoughts and feelings, but most just had actions and histories. This is not enough. I stand with my 7/10.

THE DIALOGUE: The dialogue in this book was quite good, There was none of the usual colloquialisms that normally are found in books written about England in the '80s – because all of the people that L was dealing with were upper class. L himself was upper class too. This made the dialogue quite easy to follow. He was God watching his creations play out his philosophies. The only time the dialogue ranged into lower class dialogue was the skinheads who had their own terms for things after the revolution. These were explained by the historian writing the book beforehand, so there was no confusion. The dialogue was credible and because it was ostensibly written by a historian, and quoted from numerous sources. Each source of dialogue was unique and added to the overall credibility of the story. There were letters and papers cited which helped put into words what L was really doing. When things were being read, things such as memoirs, this put them into the dialogue category, which helped the story tremendously. It made the history more credible as well. I give the dialogue a 10/10

THE GORE SCORE: The gore score on this one is quite difficult. Thousands of people died. Their deaths were clinically described by the historian. That leaves us with our imaginations which are perfectly active and fertile. While there were some beatings described, some cannibalism, some bodies left in body bags on statues left in centrally public places, the overall violence to children, young adults, women, elderly persons and everyone else is simply ghastly. There is torture involved also. While the historian is clinical about it, some of the witness accounts are pretty hard to take. Even the clinical accounts of the things done to children made my hair stand on end. When your imagination takes over as the clinical account reels past, you are in trouble. Remember thousands of people died in differing ways – this leaves a lot of ways for those people to die, including all that art that still continued in those prison-like hospitals that were supposed rehabilitate people, groups of skinheads hunting down the “wrong kind” of people and doing things to them you don't want to know about. Because of all these things, I give the gore score an 9/10. Most of it happens in your head, but it is placed there by hints in the book – so though there are no limbs flying, no guts spilling, no blood gushing, I stick with my score of 9/10.

THE IMAGERY: The imagery in this book is hard to take but is quite essential to the overall message of the book. Here you have this bipolar lifestyle of L and his friends living the good life on one hand. On the other hand you have the populace of England starving, wearing rags, dirty, hunted down, living in abandoned buildings in the country and dealing with the black market for food. What could be more bipolar than that? The raping and pillaging, the cannibalism, the police/private army sitting aside watching it all happen, London and all major cities completely destroyed by sanctioned race riots in which L's people helped. Buildings burned, rats overrunning the place, almost totally abandoned, limp flags for L fluttering in the breeze. His statues are everywhere with no one to see them but the rats. Everything is grey. London is a wasteland. Every city is a wasteland. The destruction is unparalleled. For imagery I give it a 9/10, though bleak, the images resonate in your brain as so depressing and grey. Grey is the overall color of the book, once L takes over, except for the fire of the cannibals, which dances merrily. It is the only color, other than blood which highlights L's reign of terror. 9/10.

THE PACING: The pacing in the book waxed and waned depending on where in the life of L it actually was. Whether in childhood, adolescence, adulthood, philosophy, or action. Some parts were slow, some were quite gripping and swift. It depended on his planning, what phase he was in, how the public was reacting, and what supporting evidence the historian and collected that brought the whole thing to life. Some parts were really quite deadening, some were rather boring, most were quite interesting, and always scary. For pacing, I have to give it a 5/10. I have read real histories that bring dead characters to life that do an amazing job with dead facts and dead people, with an option to make up everything, you'd think you could do a better job of making this novel sing with both characterization and pacing. I'll reiterate, 5/10 for pacing.

THE ENDING: The ending was interesting and somewhat satisfying. The damage had been done. There was no plan for revitalization. Just a bunch of new characters running the country and back to business as usual. In some ways it is was anticlimactic. I was hoping that everyone had learned a lesson and something good would have come out of all the suffering imposed by L. Something wonderful, something transcendent. I guess I was overoptimistic. People and people after all and Governments are Governments. People will someday learn that our Forefathers had it right when they said that Government should be For the People, By the People in the Pursuit for Life, Liberty and Happiness. We have gotten so far away from that these days maybe we should think about something different. For and ending I give it a 7/10.

THE UPSHOT: The upshot of the book is that everyone sitting in a democracy should read this. It is not only a cautionary tale, but a horror story about how one man in power can change a country in 14 months from a democracy to Hell on Earth. The suffering was so bad and so many died, fled the country or were eaten, that England would never have been the same had this actually happened. If you think a Zombie threat is bad, trying reading this instead – this will give you nightmares you never dreamed possible. This is worse than the Zombie Apocalypse times three. The brainchild of one man, waiting to die for reasons only he can dream of, while everyone else suffers for his whims. It's not only a sin, this man is worse than Stalin, Hitler, Lenin, Pol Pot and Genghis Khan, and all those of their kind combined. One man! Read it. You must know what you face because it could happen in the future, so you can watch for the signs and do the right things, so it won't happen in our lifetimes, or the lifetimes of our children if we teach them what to look for and what to listen for as well. Think of it as preparedness training. This review gets a 47 / 60 which gives it four stars if we use the MLB rating system below: If it were only content that I was describing or the idea that the author was going for, this would be a five star book. The only problem is the packaging is a little tarnished. I still suggest you go out and buy it and read it. It is an absolute must that everyone in a democracy should all know about what could happen. Read this book today and find out!


Points Rating
50 - 60 5 stars
40 – 49 4 stars
30 – 39 3 stars
20 – 29 2 stars
10 – 19 1 stars
0 – 9 no stars